Frisson
I have felt a frisson of excitement with my return to writing—a return with no deadline on both serial projects I mentioned before in the last blog. I love the creative part and really want to share my finished works, yet at the same time I am having a crisis about which way to go, one that temporarily diminished my desire to write. My punk roots sometimes push me to burn it all down, but the burning days are behind me. Anyway, the excitement is back, and I have been diving into writing when the mood hits, which is fairly often.
Frisson is a thing that comes out of the blue at times when I least expect it. I honestly thought of shelving both projects until I was walking Max, my husky, and thought out a complete scene in Sessions. The other, Timber Tantrum, I have decided to dive into and see how close to an exploitation comic I can take it. I am not sure about the fate of these projects, but I am going to keep working on them as long as the process makes me happy.
Some stories take years, while others take months. Each one begins with a spark—a moment when I know the story is the one I want to write. Modulator started by watching an HBO documentary on the 1970s surveillance of the NYC mob. I became fascinated with the analog devices, and after a dive into the Crypto Museum, a giallo was formed. Future-Thrill came about after I finally finished the third manuscript, Over the Edge, of my Rebel’s Edge series, and my punk years were fresh on my mind. I wondered what would happen if my best friend and I never grew up and kept the same mindset as adults. Then I thought about putting fictional versions of us in a futuristic dystopian cyberpunk setting, and the story came to life with a spark of frisson. There is something amazing about the creative process when all the pieces fall together and the story begins to play out like a reel of film in my head.
I have been writing long enough to have a catalog of interesting things. Again, I do want to share them and get feedback, or at least be told how different and twisted (right or wrong) they are. I have written horror, westerns, thrillers, sci-fi, and memoirs. I skip around in genres, but there is a common thread. That is why I call my genre punk fiction. The key is in the similarity of my on-edge protagonists with a sense of anarchy.
Another key is the spark of life, the frisson of a story. Like a modern Prometheus or Frankenstein’s monster, each spark creates new life. And once created, has a life of its own.
DS
Below is a picture from the beginning of me doing a cover shoot behind Numbers in Houston for Where the Road Roams.
