This week in randomocity

H. R. Giger died this week.


In case you didn't know (and I can't believe you'd be reading this if you didn't) he was the artist who inspired the creature and several of the sets for my favorite all-time movie, Alien. That was my first exposure to his work, and I became curious to see more.


What I've found over the years has almost always blown my mind. Disturbing but beautiful work, haunting and powerful. It's the sort of stuff that bypasses your conscious mind, and takes root directly into the subconscious. I've used his work to inspire the tone for a lot of my writing--look for my novella, "Warden," which I published here a while back.


He was a genius, a towering talent, and he will be deeply missed.


I'm taking a couple of days off from work to try to make some more headway on the first draft of The Sorcerer's Daughter. It's slow going. I'm still in love with the story, and the characters, but for some reason it's really difficult to get the words on the page.


Therefore, for writing inspiration, I turned to Ramsey Campbell, specifically his novel, Creatures of the Pool. Campbell is a great example of how you freakin' write a novel. He sets the scene and advances the plot better than damned near anyone else. Sometimes he's a little bit too economical and I have to put the book aside just because what I had just read was so dense with detail, subtext, and plot advancement. I urge you to check him out, if you haven't already. Any of his work, not just this particular book. This is how it's done. There are tons of writers--many of them bestselling authors--who would benefit a great deal from reading Campbell's stuff.


It does my heart good, that there are still a few writers out there who actually write novels instead of outlines and first drafts that somehow get published and purchased by people who don't seem to know better.


So, that's my next few days. Writing, maybe doing a little painting or sketching or something, and laundry.


As good as it gets!