Ask the Author: D. Clarence Snyder
Answered Questions (5)
D. Clarence Snyder
I edit. Or I work on something else, something that exercises different parts of the brain. Sometimes I'll draw a comic for some other storyline, or I'll work on a cover--really, anything that lets me feel like I'm making forward progress, or that I'm accomplishing something--but without getting caught up in the same kind of thought process that has me stopped on whatever I'm writing.
D. Clarence Snyder
Lots of things... lots of outlines of things... a first contact story, a Victorian-Era space travel series, a few "space-opera" stories.
But in terms of immediacy, I'm working on the next book in The Bright Future Series, "The Incubus Gambit".
But in terms of immediacy, I'm working on the next book in The Bright Future Series, "The Incubus Gambit".
D. Clarence Snyder
Write.
Every day.
Write.
Edit and rewrite after writing, but if you want to write, write. Don't let your ego be satisfied by your friends telling you how good your idea is. Write your story, your article, your book, whatever. Make the time; wake up 30 minutes earlier and write.
That's where I'd start on the advice that's been useful for me. If I went through everything that's helped me, I'd never finish this answer.
Every day.
Write.
Edit and rewrite after writing, but if you want to write, write. Don't let your ego be satisfied by your friends telling you how good your idea is. Write your story, your article, your book, whatever. Make the time; wake up 30 minutes earlier and write.
That's where I'd start on the advice that's been useful for me. If I went through everything that's helped me, I'd never finish this answer.
D. Clarence Snyder
I wake up.
Sometimes I sleep.
I am constantly bombarded with ideas and characters and snippets for scenes. Inspiration isn't the hard part. The hard part is picking out the worthwhile stuff, and then making the time to write it down... and rewrite it.
Sometimes I sleep.
I am constantly bombarded with ideas and characters and snippets for scenes. Inspiration isn't the hard part. The hard part is picking out the worthwhile stuff, and then making the time to write it down... and rewrite it.
D. Clarence Snyder
In a way, this one has been with me for a long time. I guess it started with the Devo song "Big Mess." Listening to the song (as a kid) I got this idea of a character in a cyberpunk type of world who was a DJ, but he moonlighted as a mercenary. He was a hit-man who hosted a radio talk show about the mercenary profession. The song still inspires me for that sort of duplicitous culture.
Fast forward a decade or so, and I was riding in a car on an elevated highway. I looked over to a city going by, and another inspirational song came on the radio. It wasn't so much the song (Peter Gabriel's "Your Eyes") as the sound, and I was overwhelmed by this desire to write a story that was "sexy... like the city at night."
Okay, so I've been drawn to the genre, but I didn't want to do something dark and brooding. Then it occurred to me that people in adventure stories had to live in the world before and after the adventure. The Cookie Caper came to me as I was writing pitches for a new creator-owned comic publisher. I envisioned it as a series, which was set in a "cyber" kind of world but was, at its core, a slice-of-life comedy. As a comic book series, I was less concerned with the story and more with the characters. Stories would just be jobs, and we'd go from there.
The first job? Well, what would be funny, but at the same time deadly serious? How about some kind of super cookie? After all no one would really hire a mercenary to wreck action story level mayhem over cookies, right? M&M/Mars bought Wrigley for $23 billion in 2008--all cash. Oreo made two billion dollars in revenue in 2013. Funny because people don't think of gum and cookies like that; serious because billion dollar fortunes are always serious.
Fast forward a decade or so, and I was riding in a car on an elevated highway. I looked over to a city going by, and another inspirational song came on the radio. It wasn't so much the song (Peter Gabriel's "Your Eyes") as the sound, and I was overwhelmed by this desire to write a story that was "sexy... like the city at night."
Okay, so I've been drawn to the genre, but I didn't want to do something dark and brooding. Then it occurred to me that people in adventure stories had to live in the world before and after the adventure. The Cookie Caper came to me as I was writing pitches for a new creator-owned comic publisher. I envisioned it as a series, which was set in a "cyber" kind of world but was, at its core, a slice-of-life comedy. As a comic book series, I was less concerned with the story and more with the characters. Stories would just be jobs, and we'd go from there.
The first job? Well, what would be funny, but at the same time deadly serious? How about some kind of super cookie? After all no one would really hire a mercenary to wreck action story level mayhem over cookies, right? M&M/Mars bought Wrigley for $23 billion in 2008--all cash. Oreo made two billion dollars in revenue in 2013. Funny because people don't think of gum and cookies like that; serious because billion dollar fortunes are always serious.
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