Gareth S. Young - - 1000 Trillion Suns

 As promised, today I begin a new series of interviews with a diverse group of writers I've met on my internet journeys. The first head on the chopping block (volunteer) is Valerie Haight. Valerie is a prize winning, contemporary romance and suspense writer from Arkansas. Always supportive of other writers, she was one of the first people on Twitter to extend the hand of friendship to me and the first (and still only) person to ask me to post (guest blog) on their website. I am hugely honored that she has finally relented and agreed to come over to my wee blog and talk to you all (or y'all...whichever is more appropriate lol). So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce the first "Bright Light" in this ongoing series: Valerie Haight GUS: Hi, Valerie! This is a very exciting time for you in your writing career.  Now that you're nearing the release of your first novella, which part of the journey has surprised you the most...

Soon I will have the first of what, I hope, will be a series of interesting and enlightening AUTHOR INTERVIEWS . I realize these pop up everywhere but I intend to add my own little slant to proceedings and hopefully keep them interesting. I'm also going to be talking to a diverse range of writers covering many genres and at many different points in their writing careers. With any luck there will be good information for everyone, from the newest of newbies to the most experienced of old heads. So, come back MONDAY 26th for my first interview. I'll be talking to my good friend  VALERIE HAIGHT . In the meantime, I hope you all had a fun and filling Thanksgiving. I figured I'd keep it light this evening and offer another silly poem I wrote...twenty years ago. Again, I was working on some background stuff for stories and this just popped into my head. I used to love the antagonistic relationship between pairs of cartoon characters and wanted to come up wi...

I read somewhere, a long time ago, that the nursery rhyme "Ring-a-ring o' Roses" was suspected to have been about The Black Death (or some other pandemic). I was fascinated by the dark and grisly origin of a children's playground game and noticed its not an isolated case. One of the most appealing things about Fairytales is that many of them are very dark, lots of axe-chopping, wolf slaughtering, pig eating and witch murdering topped off with some really bittersweet endings. There's a dark streak in children where just a little bit of scary is a good thing. Roald Dahl's books, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and his book of Revolting Rhymes, are appealing to children for that very reason. Dahl had no problem putting the children in his stories into very dark situations. I recall as a young child being on vacation with my family and coming across a small bridge across a stream. We were somewhere in the Highlands of Scotland...

NaNoWriMo is upon us and it's time for all you writers to lock yourselves in your respective writing dungeons, shun the world, family, friends and forego television, movies and proper sustenance. Are you ready? I am. Sort of. I have an idea but no clue how I'm going to write it. Still not even sure if it's going to be in first person or third or a mix of the two. I know the characters and basic gist of where I want the story to go but the little details elude me. Typically, I'm a slow starter and require a big push at the end to reach the 50k word target. This will be my third year and so far I have two victories under my belt. What is a victory? With NaNoWriMo its really straightforward: just write. You are aiming for 50,000 words, or more, but 50k will win you a nice certificate. You don't worry about spellcheck, editing or spending too much time on any given moment. You write...and write. And at the end of it all you'll have 50,000 words towards y...

This is part four of my 100 Favorite Movies. Counting down from  070-061 . Part 1 can be seen here:   100-091 Part 2 can be seen here:   090-081 Part 3 can be seen here:  080-071 ...and now for Part 4... 070  The Mothman Prophecies (2002) - This one is a slow burner...you have to be patient. Richard Gere stars as a reporter who is drawn to a small town in West Virginia where the locals report seeing a mysterious Mothman and other strange occurrences. He is drawn to the story because of things his wife said to him before she passed away after a car accident. His obsession with the Mothman is increased further when he learns of the small town and starts to experience some unexplained things for himself. And then one night in his motel, the mysterious Indrid Cold calls his phone. This one is creepy rather than scary. Are things happening because of something easily explainable or because of some mysterious creature who seems ...

This is part three of my 100 Favorite Movies. Counting down from 080-071 . Part One can be seen here:   100-091 Part Two can be seen here:   090-081 Ready for part 3? What you waiting for? Read on... 080  Iron Giant (1999) - A giant robot crashes to the Earth and befriends a small boy in this wonderful animated movie. Set during the Cold War, it's a deceptively simple tale with a powerful message and it works for both children and adults. The animation is old school hand drawn stuff, except for the Giant which was Computer Generated. Surprisingly, this mix of styles doesn't clash and actually helps make the Giant stand out and look different to the world he crashed into. Brad Bird directed and co-wrote the screenplay and it basically got him his gig with PIXAR, directing The Incredibles. This has allowed him to break out into working with real humans with his latest movie being the newest Mission Impossible. With Iron Giant he pitched it perfectly and it has to ...

As a reader, there was nothing I hated more in a book than having a main character vomit their entire life history in an attempt to explain some previous reaction or inaction. It's a classic case of violating the SHOW don't TELL mantra that writers all chant to themselves in their darkened basements. It's also just sucky. As a writer, it's important that your characters have some sort of history to make them three dimensional. It informs how the characters would react in a given situation and can allow you to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to entice the reader to follow. Take a classic example from the movies: Darth Vader. Using a nice little bit of misdirection with Obi-Wan Kenobi - telling Luke his father died - the reveal in The Empire Strikes Back that Darth Vader was in fact Luke's father caused the world to choke on its popcorn. From recent internationally best selling books you have the character of Severus Snape. Harry Potter spends almost the entire run...