Ask the Author: Thomas Burchfield
Answered Questions (7)
Thomas Burchfield
I don't have a summer" list per se. I write for the THE STRAND MAGAZINE, so any lists I make tend to be geared toward them.
Thomas Burchfield
I don't believe in "writer's block" (except for those who might suffer from an actual neurological deficit). I believe the "block" is conjured by a pernicious choking idealism on the part of the writer: "Every single word be comma perfect and flow like wine from my brain...or else!"
The truth is, creativity doesn't work like that. It ebbs, it flows. Some days I feel like a genius, but most days I don't--"Bob opened the door" is all I got. I go ahead and write that and keep rolling. I can--and do--come back and look at it the next time through (It's called "re-writing" and, some ways, it's the best part of the whole journey.)
Sometimes "Bob opened the door" is the right bundle of words.
The truth is, creativity doesn't work like that. It ebbs, it flows. Some days I feel like a genius, but most days I don't--"Bob opened the door" is all I got. I go ahead and write that and keep rolling. I can--and do--come back and look at it the next time through (It's called "re-writing" and, some ways, it's the best part of the whole journey.)
Sometimes "Bob opened the door" is the right bundle of words.
Thomas Burchfield
That's hard to answer: the occasional flush of joy (also known as "flow") when a session or project is going well; the feeling, rarer than I like to admit, that a piece is actually good, even long after I've finished it; when readers tell me, in person and otherwise, that they liked my work.
Thomas Burchfield
1: Know yourself. Be your own sharpest, most astute, critic. Writing badly is not the problem. Failing to recognize it and fix it is.
Go ahead. Write badly! Just remember to FIX IT.
2: Whatever the genre you're in, not only read the very best in that genre, read *outside and beyond* it. Know your Shakespeare, your Tolstoy, et al. If anyone ever sneers at you for the genre (s) you write in, you can always flatten them with a quote from Nabokov.
3: And, finally, most importantly, you need to be able to look at yourself calmly in the mirror and ask, "Am I really made for this? Am I truly good enough?" This is especially true for fiction writers. There's no shortage of novels in the world and too too many bad ones.
If your answer is "no" and you walk away, no harm is done, nothing lost. You may be well be a better, wiser and more noble person for it. The world needs doctors, lawyers, mechanics, politicians, climate scientists, and so many others. There are many paths to a worthy life, better ways of getting that house in the country. If it's not this one, then it's another.
Go ahead. Write badly! Just remember to FIX IT.
2: Whatever the genre you're in, not only read the very best in that genre, read *outside and beyond* it. Know your Shakespeare, your Tolstoy, et al. If anyone ever sneers at you for the genre (s) you write in, you can always flatten them with a quote from Nabokov.
3: And, finally, most importantly, you need to be able to look at yourself calmly in the mirror and ask, "Am I really made for this? Am I truly good enough?" This is especially true for fiction writers. There's no shortage of novels in the world and too too many bad ones.
If your answer is "no" and you walk away, no harm is done, nothing lost. You may be well be a better, wiser and more noble person for it. The world needs doctors, lawyers, mechanics, politicians, climate scientists, and so many others. There are many paths to a worthy life, better ways of getting that house in the country. If it's not this one, then it's another.
Thomas Burchfield
I'm currently preparing another of my old screenplays I wrote during the 1990s, an adaptation of DRACULA, which reflects the "anti-Twilight" approach to the character I took in my novel DRAGON'S ARK.
Once that's loose among you, Ambler House will publish my next novel BUTCHERTOWN, a 1920s gangland shoot-em-up, hopefully in October.
Once that's loose among you, Ambler House will publish my next novel BUTCHERTOWN, a 1920s gangland shoot-em-up, hopefully in October.
Thomas Burchfield
Music seems to help with certain moods, but inspiration can come from anywhere. Walking is a good technique to stir the soup.
Thomas Burchfield
NOW SPEAKS THE DEVIL grew in part from my love for movie bad guys, in particular Lee Van Cleef ("The Bad" in THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY"). The plot was taken from a newspaper article about a young man who found $10,000, turned it in and then was allowed to reclaim when it went unclaimed after a month (That was back in the early 1980s, when that was allowed.)
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