Archive for Writing Projects

“The Boy Between Worlds” – Behind The Words

jdeeds / April 12, 2012 / No comments

Wow our Sixth installment of Behind the Words! Today we talk about “The Boy Between Worlds,” which turned out to be my first Gloaming Gap story.

Where did the idea come from?

I had originally started working on The Boy Between Worlds before I had ever even talked to Jeff about Gloaming Gap. Originally the story was going to be about a boy who suffered from Sleep Paraylsis. As someone who suffers from it personally I had wanted to write a piece that explains the tramia of Sleep Paraylsis on tween aged children.

Obviously that’s not where the story went. Once I started putting words to the page I knew it wasn’t going to follow the intended path. I had written about three paragraphs before I meet Jeff and was introduced to the world of Gloaming Gap.

When Jeff told me about this weird little town I feel in love with the idea of writing for it. That was when the idea of Timmy’s story exploded in my head like a deepth charge searching for a Nazi sumbermine.

About half way through writing the story I knew it was going to be two stories told from Timmy and Chance’s perspectives. 2400 words later I had a the first vampire story.

2400 words? that’s not flash fiction!?

Yeah this was also my first introduction to massive editing. Jeff sent me  very polite email explaining that Gloaming Gap stories were generally always flash fiction near 1500 words. OH CRAP. I spent the next two nights cutting as much as I could from the story. Taking out nearly 700+ words. Jeff was gracious enough to roll with the story even though the length was still far longer then most stories on the site.

Timmy, Tamra, and Paul where did the characters come?

There is a little secret here. When I started fleshing out the friendship between these three I drew from my High School days with my best friends, Jason Paul Kurinko, and Kirsten Tamara Deeds (Malkowski) Timmy was the name of one of my invisable friends when I was a little kid.

To this day “Boy Between Worlds” is one of my favorite stories I’ve written. I think there is so much more to this story that I may have to work on someday…

 

Category: Behind the Words, Gloaming Gap, Series, Writing, Writing Projects / Tags: , ,

“One Stake or Two” – Behind The Words

jdeeds / April 5, 2012 / No comments

On our fifth installment of “Behind the Words.” We are going to talk about the Gloaming Gap story “One Stake or Two.”

Where did the idea come from?

While writing “A Boy Between Worlds” I realized that these two brothers were so connected that I had to tell Chance’s side of events. In my mind Chance and Timmy are two sides of the human experience in Gloaming Gap. Timmy believes everything is supernatural, and Chance believes or did believe that it was all explainable with rational thought.

So I came up with this idea of telling story that started with Timmy, but allowed him to have interaction with Chance and create a starting point for the second story.

The whole point was to create an interweaving story of two brothers that would show one world from two very different perspectives.

Why is Chance such a goofball?

I think chance’s constant acting like a goofball is just that, an act. I think he has some idea of what is really going on in Gloaming Gap, but it’s like with wild animals if you show fear they kill you. Chance plays dumb so he’s not a threat to anyone in Gloaming Gap. Maybe he’s done it so long, that the act has become part of him. You can only wear a mask for so long before you forget what you look like under it.

Did you know ahead of time if Chance would kill his Timmy?

I wanted Chance to have to make that decision that none of us want to ever have to make. Sorta like if you were in the Zombie Apocalypse could you kill a loved one you knew was infected.

When I finished the story after the first draft in my mind Chance had killed Timmy. After talking with, my wife, Kirsten and fending off her anger for killing off yet another character I decided to leave it up to the reader really, until we decided to use Timmy in later stories.

What’s up with Chance and Bella? 

For that I’m going to say, just wait and see. This Friday 04/06/2012 read Nean Burkholder’s Story and see what is written in the stars for Chance and Bella.

Category: Behind the Words, Gloaming Gap, Series, Writing, Writing Projects / Tags: , ,

“Christmas Presence” – Behind The Words

jdeeds / March 22, 2012 / No comments

The Third installment of “Behind the Words,” and we are talking about my first co-writing piece. “Christmas Presence” is another Gloaming Gap piece. You can also listen to the story being read over at “The Lancast” for their Christmas Show!

Where did the idea come from?

Moving to Lancaster I came across a new experience living here that I had never experienced growing up in San Diego. Christmas Tree Lightnings. Every city, township, village out here has them. I love going to them. You see people you haven’t seen in ages catch up and just wander around mingling with the town’s people.

This is what I wanted to use as a means for readers to meet some of the new faces, and catch up with some of the older character’s in Gloaming Gap.

It was Nean’s idea to use the character of Keith, who is invisible to the towns people, to see the town and it’s people in a way that allowed us to be both and outsider and insider all at the same time.

What did you think of the co-writing experience?

Co-writing is a great way to challenge yourself as a writer. Learning how to express yourself and what you want to present in a story while also listening to the input of another causes you to constantly re-imagine your images and story plot.

The part of co-writing I enjoyed the most was seeing how another person can imagine the same story from such a different perspective. It is always good to see stories through different ideas.

The part of co-writing I found the most difficult was timing and scheduling. I really like working with somone in person to work out details. Both Nean and I had crazy schedules and restraints to our available time.

Will you ever co-write again? 

In fact yes! My wife and I are working on moving forward on a novel that has been bouncing around in my head for the past 10 years. The story to me is finished in my mental landscape. The problem I was running into is I know every detail of the world was becoming frustrated trying to fit it all into the story.

Our set up is that I will be writing a synopsis of the story overall and giving her basic details of how the world works. I will then write a brief synopses of each chapter and she will fill in the story.

I’m sure I will be writing much about this as the process moves forward.

Category: Behind the Words, Gloaming Gap, Series / Tags: ,

“Toy” – Behind The Words

jdeeds / January 26, 2012 / No comments

This the second installment of “Behind the Words.” I’m taking some time to talk about my writing as a process. I will discuss How I create the images and where my ideas come from. This time we are talking about the Gloaming Gap story “Toy”

Where did the idea come from:

There were several ideas behind this story. I wanted the story to take place in the little town toy store, run by a bearded old man, much like a Santa character. I wanted it to be one of the magical places with tons of wooden toys and dolls…just gone wrong, dark and creepy. I also wanted to bring in humor so I thought it would be interesting for Caitlin to think she was talking to the ghost of this man when in reality he wasn’t dead at all. A Christmas Miracal if you will.

What was the point of the movie theater?

I love the old Majestic style 1950′s theaters. There are so few left I knew Gloaming Gap would be the perfect place for one. Who better to sit in the theater then a girl trying to avoid ghosts. Why would ghosts sit down to watch a movie when they have the best reality to watch whenever they want. Are we just reality TV for Ghosts and Angels? (sounds like a whole different GG story.)

What was that shadow creature?

If I knew yet I would tell you. or better yet write a Gloaming Gap story for us and use the creature!

Was Thomas dead or not?

No you can’t kill a creature like Thomas who has the power of creation of life that easily.

 

Next Week I’m going to talk about “A Christmas Presence” Which was my first Co-writing piece. So if you haven’t read it take a gander and leave me and questions you have for me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Category: Behind the Words, Gloaming Gap, Series, Writing Projects / Tags: , ,

“More Than She Can Chew” – Behind The Words.

jdeeds / January 18, 2012 / No comments

Over at Gloaming Gap you can find and enjoy my latest flash fiction story: “More Than She Can Chew.” I wanted to take time in blog to talk about the process of my writing these stories. This will be the first of several in a blog series called “Behind the Words.”

If you are still curious what Gloaming Gap is READ THIS post!

Where did the idea come from?

I had this image in my mind of a fairy hiding under a bed while the four Linder boys/werewolves eyes appeared out of the darkness. It was approaching the holidays when I talked to my boys about the new story idea.

Ethan asked me. “Dad would were-wolf children believe in things like Santa or Elves?” From that I started thinking about what would monsters believe in? Easter Bunnies? Santa? how would or could religion and superstition effect Monsters beliefs and motivations.

All these trains of thought lead me to wonder, would the were-wolf children believe in the tooth fairy. I quickly ran to the computer. I just had to know how many teeth a wolf has! would the boys need the tooth fairy every time they changed from wolf to boys? Turns out Wolfs have 42 teeth and humans 32. So every time these boys were changing from wolf to boys they they were losing teeth.

The thought of being on Tooth Fairy duty for all the werewolf children I found hilarious!

What’s up with the Dust Bunny?

I love taking inanimate objects and giving them a sense of life. I have an entire story written about a house that seems to take on a life of it’s own and tormenting the neighbors. The bunny is a source for my dark humor, cause in a way we all want to laugh at the self absorbed fairy who gets eaten.

Why the transition? is it two stories or one?

If you go way back to my First two GG stories “The Boy Between Worlds,” and “One Stake or Two” I did something similar. I took two different points of view and ran them to a single point in time. I like the idea that we are all sharing the same story from different points of view.

So with Flora and Sandra I wanted to do something similar. The first part of the story is clearly Flora’s final moments, thoughts, feeling, and frustrations. (which she takes out on the bunny) The second part of the story is Sandra coming to terms that she may have to make some rather hard decisions shortly.

I hope everyone enjoyed the story and all my other stories. I’ll be writing another behind the words shortly for my story “Toy.” So if you have any questions or comments before I write that one let me know. :)

Category: Behind the Words, Gloaming Gap, Series, Writing Projects / Tags: , ,
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