Something About myself

How I Became a Writer

In my youth, I had a knack for spinning a tale. Because my family moved around quite a bit, my talent for telling stories grew more as the new set of friends began to know me. I would describe malevolent narratives of missing people captured in the basement of nearby houses, specters or ghouls haunting the school or even crawling malformed creatures in the shadows that grab children in order to bring them back into the depths of sewers. Seriously, I always had a dark imagination to be a future horror writer! Truly, it wasn’t until I read my first ‘grown-up’ book--Cujo by Stephen King--which I grasped the concept of being a writer, and desired to conjure up an equally terrifying story. Plus, it’d be awesome to have my name on the cover! Even then, I realized I had to drop my last name: My god, it’d take up too much space… 

As an adolescent, I attempted writing: Really premature renderings of dialogue, descriptions and scenes paved my wave into larger pieces. In college, I did take creative writing, but I found it to be too structured for me.  In my twenties, I wrote my first manuscript—not exactly a great piece of literature—and then buried it. Will it ever come to the surface one day? Perhaps. 

Anyway, the sense of accomplishment catapulted me into writing The Tale of Old Man Fischer, which took me a long time to write and edit. Frankly, I never really told anyone in my family (and even my friends) that I wrote books. When Old Man Fischer hit the shelves, they were absolutely flabbergasted! Attending Graduate School and completing my thesis further ignited the writer in me. In essence, I wrote GAVIN as a study break. Soon after, DERRICK was conceived. Now I produced QUINN to complete the Gavin Nolan Trilogy. 

My Crazy Writing Process

Usually, a beginning to a story, or rather concept, comes to my mind. This becomes the Prologue. Soon, I ponder a character, the name, and soon couple of chapters are produced. After that, I let the characters and story somewhat pave the way for the rest of the time. I truly do not know the outcome of the book until mid-way, and I stir the ship in that direction. On a side note, I don’t conduct any research, create chapter layouts, make up a book outline nor develop character descriptions. Seriously, it’s me, the laptop and my dark, insidious thoughts running the show.  

Then in the subsequent drafts, I tear into my work, map it all out and make sense of my madness. 

Future Projects 

Taking a breather from Gavin’s world, I penned another piece called  Eradication Initiative. It’s about a group of strangers being hunted down, collected and brought back to an underground facility. But for what malicious purpose? Hmm, you’ll just have to wait until Late 2022.

In my ‘downtime’ from editing QUINN, I am also writing a new untitled piece--a ghost story set in Up-State New York. I’ve only been writing snippets here and there because I’ve been scaring myself…even during full daylight! After that, I’m pondering another trilogy involving immortality. (No, no, no, it’s not another overdone vampire series!) Being stated, I've always had an interest in Ancient Civilizations and Cultures. And I’m seeing a beginning in my head...

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Remember…Read to Escape!

Russell

Recently, I created a Mini YouTube Series so you can learn a little more about myself. I discuss more of my background, the writing process and future projects...Please check out each one!

Seriously, I edited myself and refrained from using my typical Chef mouth. Fuck is really my favorite word and sentence enhancer...But I do get goofy enough!

Enjoy!