How Do You Motivate Yourself to Write On a Bad Day? Watch Author Interviews

Photo Credit: Pixabay.com

I almost didn't do a blog post today. It's been a rough couple of days. And I literally mean a couple of days. So that mean's it started yesterday--Friday the 13th! I'm not superstitious (in fact, 13 is one of my favourite numbers), but, believe it or not, it started with a broken mirror. However, I can't say whether the mirror broke yesterday or earlier in the week. It was the passenger side-view mirror to my car which I hadn't been driving in all week until yesterday and so I didn't notice that it had fallen out of its frame until I started driving. But apparently it had fallen off and broke into about four or five pieces.

So I've been on a quest for a new mirror since yesterday and have been to three places. The first place didn't sell mirrors for Chevy Classics, the model of my car. The second place ordered the mirror and I picked it up today only to find out that it didn't fit the frame due to its shape. The O'Reilly counter clerk said it was the only mirror for that model of car they were able to order from their main Sacramento store. He suggested that I try the Auto Zone. I did that only to find out that not only did they have to order the mirror, which would take three days to arrive, but they charge 40 bucks for the glass alone (which is all I needed, was the glass). O'Reilly only charged $13 for the mirror.

I was so pissed that I was not in the mood to write. Then I remembered some YouTube videos of author interviews that I intended to watch this morning but didn't get a chance. Normally when I have writers' block or lack inspiration or motivation to write I'll either read an author's bio or interview or will watch a video of either and that motivates me again. This is especially the case if the author is one who I really like such as Neil Gaiman or Harlan Ellison.

While I was watching some of these videos earlier this evening, I saw a lot of links to full length ones and so ones that covered a half hour to an hour-and-a-half's worth of footage. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to watch the full length ones but will watch them eventually. There are full length interviews of and speeches by authors such as Neil Gaiman, Charles Stross, Anne Rice, and Margaret Atwood. I included a speech here by Gaiman from a few years back when he attended a college graduation at the University of the Arts. This speech helped me continue pursuing writing for a living regardless of all odds. I thought I would include it here since this is graduation time for both secondary and post secondary schools. If you ever doubt you can make a living as a writer because of what mainstream, practical society says then I strongly suggest you watch this video. For those of you who may not be writers, I also suggest you watch it because it can help with just about any career you desire.

Book Cover Illustration

I just started the colouring for the cover illustration for "Circa Sixty Years Dead". I was slowed down a little because I realized that I needed to select a hue for it since that's what seems to be popular among horror fiction covers right now. The hue I selected is a combination of blue and black for a night setting in the scene. I'm going to try to have it done by next weekend.

Let me know what you think of Gaiman's commencement speech in the box below.

Until next time . . .

Book-To-Movie: ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’

Credit: Wikimedia Commons I apologise for posting outside our regular post-day which is late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. However, I got behind on several things last week and so had to postpone the post to today. I’ve been a reader of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books ever since I was 11. What I’ve always liked so much about the series is that, like a good horror story, the stories often take place in dark settings and involve bizarre cases. Conan Doyle’s novel, “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, definitely contains these elements. It’s a detective story that crosses over into the gothic horror genre. Several movie adaptations of the novel have been made that go as far back as a 1915 German silent film. In 1959 Hammer Studios released a version starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. As much as I’m a fan of the Hammer horror films, I have not seen that one yet. The only one that I’ve seen so far is the 1939 adaptation starring that other big name in classic Bri

Book-To-Movie: ‘I Am Legend’

A vampire similar to the ones in 2008's "I Am Legend" which starred Will Smith. Credit: Pixabay.com It’s time for another Book-To-Movie review! In a Book-To-Movie, I review a book and its movie adaptations. This month’s book and its movies based on it is I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. While vampires were no longer in in the American pop culture of the the 1950s, science fiction horror in general was. So Matheson’s I Am Legend brought the scientificising of vampires into the pulp literary scene of that era. Not too long after, in the early ‘60s, the first of three book-to-movie adaptions appeared and was renamed The Last Man On Earth which starred Vincent Price. The other two were The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston in the ‘70s and I Am Legend starring Will Smith in the 2001s. Even though each one debunked the myth of the vampire as a supernatural being, each had its own depiction of the creature. ‘I Am Legend’, The Book Set in a near post-apocalyptic fu

Book-To-Movie: Stephen King’s 'The Raft'

Credit: Pixabay.com It's the third Saturday of the month and so that means it's time for another Book-To-Movie ! In a Book-To-Movie we review a book and its movie adaptation. One of the reasons I as a horror fan don’t read a lot of Stephen King’s work is because most of it consists of novels that go more than 400 pages. I have a short attention span when it comes to reading, ironically since I consider myself an avid reader, and so I normally won’t read a work that is much more than the equivalent to a 350-page mass market paperback. The other reason why I don’t read a lot of King’s work is that, as literary scholars will tell you, a lot of his writing is poor. However, he does have some good writing in his works, especially his earlier stuff, including his short horror tales. So if I read anything by Stephen King it’s usually his short stories or novellas. One of his collections I’ve read is Skeleton Crew which includes some of his good, or at least

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