Christopher Hivner's Blog

I recently got to cross another item off my writing wish list when I won a poetry contest for the first time. My poem "Warm Water" won first place in the Eye on Life Magazine poetry contest. They were also gracious enough to publish my other two contest entries "Archaeology" and "He Waited for the Carriage and Took Aim".

http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-lo...

I finished my first novel a few weeks ago. It’s currently with my sister, a retired English teacher, who is studiously correcting all of my verb tense shifts, fragmented sentences and poor word choices.

My emotions vary between excitement, fear and relief. I’m excited because I wasn’t sure I could do it. My fear comes from the thought “What if it sucks?” and I’m relieved because it’s been 6 years since I started the damn thing: It’s about time I finished it.

It never should have taken so long but when I was working two jobs I really didn’t do much except work and sleep. Then I had to reacquaint myself with my own book, trying to remember the story, scouring my notes for where the hell I was going with it all. Then there were times when I was just plain frustrated because I thought every word I was writing was crap. The words led to crappy sentences which fed into crappy paragraphs until I had pages that reeked. So I would stop working on it.

My last roadblock was a few months ago when I wrote myself into a corner. I inadvertently created problems in my story that I couldn’t resolve and have the story continue to make sense. So I did the mature thing and stopped working on the book altogether. I took my ball and went home, left all my characters milling about on the playground bitching and complaining.

It took a few months but the family at the center of the story finally hounded me enough to get back to work. I concocted a way out of my plot problems, changed direction in the middle of writing it, and then took another left turn to eventually wind up at the dark place at the end of the road.

So now after six years it’s finished except for a final edit. Don’t know what I’m going to do with it yet but I’m proud of it. On to the next project.

4 of my poems:

Detonation
The Age of Dissemination
The Delegation Traveled with a Chief
Getting an Early Start on My Messianic
Complex

have been published in the December issue of Nazar Look, an online and print magazine from Romania.

Getting an Early Start on My Messianic Complex has also been translated into Crimean Tatar alongside the English version.

http://issuu.com/kirim-tatar-kitaplar...

I’ve had some success recently with my poetry. Two of my horror poems “More than Oxygen” and “Facts about Bones” are included in the new issue of Yellow Mama:

http://blackpetalsks.tripod.com/yello...

I also had two non-genre poems, “The Engine Tongue” and “Stones” published at Eye on Life:

http://eyeonlifemag.com/poetry-unlocked/

In December I am scheduled to have 4 non-genre poems published in Nazar Look, a magazine from Romania. In January I will be the feature poet in the new issue of Fantastic Horror which will include 10 works on the theme of temptation.

I will also be the feature poet in the February issue of Illumen.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. --Robert Frost

Writing is a strange avocation. It can produce a high no drug can match when you’ve written something that parallels exactly what you saw in your head. But it can also produce migraine headaches when you’re into re-write #32 and the damn story is still crap you wouldn’t feed to a starving librarian.

When the perfect word slides from the crevasses of your brain as you type, your emotions run the gamut from sublime joy to a robust “Fuck yeah!” But then there are the days when you’ve been sitting in front of the laptop for two hours with the keys not feeling the oils from your fingers because you know there’s a word for what you want to say but, damn it, you just can’t find it anywhere in the pickled red beet you call a mind.

Next is the monumental step of sending your new-born creation out into the world. You dress them up in finery and teach them how to behave, hoping they will make a good first impression. No matter how much you prepare though you never know what the reception is going to be. You could be told “you’re a helluva writer”. Of course you could also be told “you’re a helluva nice guy but you should use your computer to run a fake farm, not so much putting words into sentences and giving them titles.”

Writing for some people is a job, for others a hobby. For some of us it just is. We can’t live with it, we can’t live without it. It’s the love of our lives and the bitch that broke our heart. Its peanut butter and chocolate separate and mixed together, a fire burning out of control, an itch that not even medicated cream can scratch, the greatest meal we’ve ever eaten and an unsalted saltine with a cup of warm water.

Writing can be anything you want it to be. But don’t ask it to loan you 20 bucks ‘til payday because you’ll be shit outta luck.

I had a couple of successes the past few weeks. My story Father Moon has been published in the October issue of Night to Dawn. This is an old school print zine so you have to pony up some money to read it, but the story has a werewolf AND zombies so its worth it. Right?

http://bloodredshadow.com/about/night...

Another short story, Rachel, has been published in the new issue of The Siren's Call. This is an ezine, but again it does cost a few dollars to enjoy. Rachel is about a snake . . . sort of.

http://www.sirenscallpublications.com...

Like most writers I use outside influences as inspirations. Music is my muse of choice. It can’t be anything with too many lyrics, or at least lyrics in English, because they’re too distracting. And it depends on what I want to write as to what I listen to. If I’m in my horror mode it will be death or doom metal. The music itself is perfect to create a dark, menacing mood and even though the songs have lyrics, you can’t understand a blind word because it’s mostly growls and grunts. I’ve written some good horror poems while listening to Beyond Black Void, a one-off project by a Belgian guitar player to create the most depressing doom metal ever written. I also like to write to Ahab and Burzum.

If I’m writing my mainstream poetry I’m very partial to Azam Ali either as a solo artist or with Vas or Niyaz. She has a gorgeous voice but sings entirely in Persian or other languages so instead of the lyrics distracting me, her sensual voice becomes another instrument mixed with the music. I also love Dead Can Dance. Lisa Gerrard is another female singer with a mesmerizing voice who sings almost entirely in other languages or made up sounds. When Brendan Perry sings it’s in English which can sometimes break my concentration. I just recently discovered a Norwegian group, Arcana, which also puts me in a good frame of mind, as well as Delerium.

Ambient music in general puts me in the mood to write: Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Vidna Obmana, David Parsons, Mind Over Matter, Appalachian Falls, etc. Here are a couple of links:

Vas -- Sunyata
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMgRVV...
Dead Can Dance -- Yulunga
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJqUbb...
David Parsons -- Himalaya
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0sOSA...
Beyond Black Void -- Desolate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEs30Y...

Photographs and art work are also rich sources of inspiration for me. The simple photograph of a steer a few years ago gave me the idea for my short story “The Way of the Land” which was set in a medieval time period. I’ve written two poems after studying the painting Entres Les Trous de la Memoire by Dominique Appia. Recently I was trying to write a large batch of horror poems for a particular project. I started to run out of ideas so I opened a book I have on the work of Hieronymus Bosch. Concentrating on parts of The Last Judgment helped me to write three poems I was very happy with.

Entres Les Trous de la Memoire
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Entre-m%C3%A9...
A piece of The Last Judgment
http://www.flickr.com/photos/profzuck...

Recently I’ve made myself work a little harder. I was again in the mood to write some horror poetry but I wasn’t at home with easy access to my music or any artwork. I decided to look around the room I was in and write about the first thing that I saw. Over the next hour I wrote a poem from the starting point of a telephone and another from a yellow box of tissues. Later that night, back at home, I continued the experiment with a take-out menu and a container of powder. I’m working on one right now that started with a pine tree.

Here is the silly poem I wrote after glancing at a Chinese take-out menu:

The menu said
“finger sandwiches”
but I didn’t expect
a ham and cheese on rye
flipping me off

I know, not exactly Pablo Neruda, but it made me laugh.

I haven’t written here in a while. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m . . . a bad blogger. I got busy doing other things: writing other blogs, working on a novella, etc. But I’m here now. That’s all that counts, right?

I don’t understand Twitter: Never have, probably never will. But I kept reading that if you’re a writer you have to be on Twitter so I joined. It’s been a few months now and I still have no idea what I’m doing. At most I’ve sent maybe 3 tweets in a day. Some of the people I’m following send 3 every femtosecond. I’ve gone 5 or 6 days without even logging on to Twitter.

The biggest confusion is how I’m supposed to use it as a writer. Recently I’ve read several articles about what I should and shouldn’t do. Big help they were as they all contradicted each other.

One tells me to use Twitter to send out links to my book, website, whatever. Others say, “Well you can do that in a minimal way, once in a while.” Yet another article said “NEVER! Never use Twitter to spam your followers with links and sales pitches! NEVER!”

As an aside, I like the Spam you buy at the supermarket. I think it gets a bad rap. A nice thick slice of Spam fried up in a pan makes a good sandwich.

Anyway, these articles tell me to sell my work, but don’t be intrusive; be myself but don’t be rude or controversial; have something to say, but not too much to say; retweet things you like but don’t retweet everything, blah blah blah.

Since there is no consensus I’m just going to Tweet whatever I feel like and if one of my cult of 33 followers wants to unfollow, so be it. If you’re interested in following me on the unmitigated disaster that is my Twitter account, the address is: @your_screams

I write both short stories and poetry and I find that I rarely work on both at the same time. If I haven’t written a new short story in a while I will feel the jones coming on. Within a few days I can’t stop turning my laptop on to write. If I’m at work or in the waiting room at the doctor’s office I have a notebook and a pen. The itch won’t be scratched until I’ve pounded out three or four new short stories. After all that work I’ll feel my energy wane. My desire to write a story has dissipated. So that’s when I get out my poetry notebook.

Poetry can be more satisfying to write in the short term because the sense of accomplishment comes so much sooner. A story may take weeks if it’s a long one and it fights back. A poem may only be 10-15 lines. If I get an inspiration I can feel that desired swell of completion in five minutes. The more involved poems can become like stories though. I wrote a ten page poem for a book project that took me weeks to get right. It wasn’t just the length; it was the tone and language. A poem that long has to draw the reader in and make them want to pull up a chair to sit a spell. At the other extreme a few years ago when I still had my cat Phantom, I had to sit in the vet’s waiting area for 45 minutes while he had a fluids treatment. For some reason I was inspired that day and in the midst of people talking, the phone ringing, dogs barking and cats crying, I wrote 5 poems. My feeling of accomplishment that day was sky high.

I don’t know why but I don’t too often write in both disciplines at the same time. I’m usually in a story mood or a poem mood. The humor will usually last for a few weeks before I switch to the other.

I admit that recently I have been working on both at the same time, probably because most of what I’ve written was for a specific project with a looming deadline. There have been days where I’ll work on a story for a few hours, and then before I go to bed, I shut off the laptop, open my poetry notebook, throw the switch in my brain’s control room and try to find poetic inspiration before falling asleep. A poem is nice that way for me, to work on before bed. If I can only find a line or two that’s acceptable before turning out the light, I still feel progress has been made.

In the past six weeks I’ve written 3 short stories and around 3 dozen poems which is about the most prolific I’ve ever been in a short spurt.

I’ve had some successes recently I thought I’d share.

An old horror/thriller story of mine called “Painkiller”, the first draft of which I wrote about 15 years ago, was published in Thrillers, Killers ‘n’ Chillers

http://thrillskillsnchills.blogspot.c...

Another older story, again first draft written about 12-15 years ago, called “The Roundabouts” was published in Welcome to Wherever. This one is a historical piece involving Copernicus and his theory of a heliocentric universe.

https://welcometowherever.wordpress.c...

A short humor story of more recent vintage, ”In a Pickle”, was published at Nights and Weekends this week. Stories like this of absurd humor are inspired by my love of Monty Python.

http://www.nightsandweekends.com/arti...

I had a couple of horror poems published as well. “2 of 1, A Pair of the Other” at Static Movement and “Killer’s Keepers, Losers Dead” at The Carnage Conservatory.

http://www.staticmovement.com/may2012...

http://carnageconservatory.wordpress....

Have a good week.