Jack Strange's Blog - Posts Tagged "novel"

I have a few thoughts about writing I’d like to share.

You might call them zen revelations for the aspiring writer.

Zen revelation 1: Writing is as natural as breathing and you knew that a long time ago, but you’ve probably forgotten it

When you were at school, and maybe aged about ten years old, there must have been at least one day when your teacher said ‘write a story’.
What did you do?
Chances are that you sat down at your desk and wrote one.
You didn’t think about it. You didn’t make a pile of notes. You just came up with a story. You may have thought of a title and written your story around that; or used an incident as the starting point, and added the title later.
You wrote your story with a pen, and you made hardly any corrections as you went along. The words just flowed out of you naturally.
You’d read lots of comics, and novels aimed at kids, and watched a few movies. Because of this, you had an instinctive grasp of what a story is, and that it has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Why can’t you do that now? Why can’t you just sit down and write a story the way you did when you were ten?
The answer is that when you were young, you had no fear of failure or of bad writing, and consequently you were able to tap into your subconscious mind.
You didn’t worry that when you began the story you didn’t know how it was going to end; you trusted your inventive mind to come up with an ending when you got there, or as you went along.
You probably didn’t even know the middle of the story when you wrote the first few paragraphs. The middle probably developed from the opening.
Writing is like speaking. When you speak to me, I don’t make notes and come up with an answer. I just answer, and the response comes to me without thinking about it at a conscious level.
Writing should be the same. You should get into a flow and just write. That’s all there is to it. Just remind yourself how you used to do it when you were ten years old, and do the same thing.
You’re rusty now, as you haven’t done that for a while, so it’ll take your mind a while to get used to that way of working again. But it will adapt. You just have to keep forcing it to make things up for you.
People make sense of the world through stories. That’s why stories exist. They really are as natural as breathing to our species.
Make things up. I can’t stress that enough.

Hi Everybody,

I'm giving away a signed copy of my book - that's right, giving it away! FREE!!! - The giveaway starts on the 13th January and ends on the 21st. You have tom enter between those dates. Just click on the link below for details. Make sure you click on the right one - it's the one that says: "See the giveaway details
at Goodreads."

The amazing people at classic horror and sci-fi magazine 'Amazing Stories' have just published something by Jack Strange. Amazing!

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/

http://amazingstoriesmag.com/2017/01/...

Hi,

I'm giving everyone the chance to read a new novel - entirely free.

It's called Raising Dave and it's being serialized in Amazing Stories magazine and a few other places.

Here's a choice of links for you to use to access it:

(1) My blog:
https://jackstrangewriter.blogspot.co...

(2) Amazing Stories magazine
https://amazingstoriesmag.com/2017/07...

(3) Reddit:
https://redd.it/6mv25p

Enjoy - and please spread the word!

Many thanks

Jack

Click on below for links to the Amazon pages for ZOMCATS! -

https://jackstrangewriter.blogspot.co...

Hi Guys,

My book is in a poll.

I don't mean to be pushy, but...

How about giving my book your vote?

Just follow this link to vote:

https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

(Ok, I admit, I am pushy - so what?)

Many thanks

Jack Strange

My cult novel 'Confessions of an English Psychopath' is free on Amazon from today (21 March 2018) to the 25th March 2018 inclusive.

Get it while you can - links below.

(PS Don't keep this to yourself - tell all your friends so they can share your good fortune!!)

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Confessions-...

Amazon USA: https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-En...

Amazon Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/Confessions...

Amazon Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/Confessions-Eng...

Confessions of An English PsychopathHi everyone,

If you'd like a free copy of my novel Confessions of an English Psychopath in return for (as ever) an honest review, please get in touch.

You can contact me by DM on Goodreads, Facebook, or Twitter - @jackstrange11; or email me on jack-strange@outlook.com

Many thanks

Kind regards

Jack

Hi Everybody,

My novel 'Confessions of an English Psychopath' is free on Amazon from today (23 July 2018 2018) to the 27th Juy 2018 inclusive.

Get it while you can - this is a universal Amazon link to your Amazon marketplace:

http://mybook.to/ConfessionsE

PS Don't keep this to yourself - tell all your friends so they can share your good fortune!

PPS Please post a review after you've read it!!

Get this book for only 99p/99cents while you can!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...