Blog Posts for David Niall Wilson

Heart of a Dragon - Now With Werewolf

David Niall Wilson — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:28:47 -0800

Just a sort of quick, humorous note. I am writing a novel with supernatural creatures in it. It was carefully outlined, and I knew going in pretty much exactly what I was going to write…except…I didn’t know that there was a werewolf in the story. What happened is simple, and worth noting. I set up a situation in the novel where one of the supporting characters needs something from my ...

Bookstores Are the Place to Find the Magic

David Niall Wilson — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:47:23 -0800

I don't have a lot of time, but this week's suggsted topic is near and dear to my heart. I have spent long hours of my life in independent bookstores, browsing shelves, piling and unpiling musty old volumes in search of treasure. That was how I learned to love books - how I cam to collect them. The bookstore is a magic place...I wrote a story about that once.Now they serve a purpose that ...

Nanowrimo is Under Way...Want to Read Along?

David Niall Wilson — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:51:14 -0800

This is just a quick note to report on the progress of my Nanowrimo novel for the year, "Heart of a Dragon." I've been working on it for three days now, and have just passed the ten thousand word point. It's a good start. I always suggest that people binge write at the beginning to get a buffer zone built up for the days when writing just isn't possible. As usual I have set up a ...

Upon Reaching Half a Century - Seuss Style

David Niall Wilson — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:59:10 -0700

This one’s gotten pretty old, His hair is thin, he reeks of mold, He wears a hat upon his head, So none will see his “do” is dead, Ten and forty years have passed, Half a century’s been surpassed, And still, he’s smiling, wonder why? Well, hell, he lived and didn’t die! His books have made it to the shelves, The better to present themselves To readers, so his leaky mind Can now infest ...

Random, Illinois - Almost Like Home

David Niall Wilson — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:04:39 -0700

I grew up in small town Illinois. That was my childhood. There were tractor pulls, pep rallies where they actually piled up wood and had bonfires, as often as not stealing that wood from the barns, outhouses, and sheds of surrounding farms. We lived in the middle of Neil Gaiman's amazing novel "American Gods," playing basketball against the boys from Paris, Illinois. We bailed ...

Icons and Scarecrows and Wizards, Oh My

David Niall Wilson — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:23:29 -0700

I thought Stephen King had slipped a cog when he had Roland, The Gunslinger, and his motley crew of travelers, come upon the Emerald City. As it turns out, he's the King for more reasons than one, because he realized what I still had to learn...that there are a lot of levels to iconic stories and you can get a lot of mileage out of them. His version of Oz, including the "ruby cowboy ...

How My First Novel Ended up NOT My First Novel

David Niall Wilson — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 11:52:19 -0700

When I finished my first novel, "This is My Blood," I was floating around on the ocean on board the USS Bainbridge. The novel was an expansion of my novelette, "A Candle in the Sun." I'd been told it needed to be expanded by a Canadian publisher and expert on vampire literature named Robert Eighteen-Bisang. Robert told me he was putting together a publishing company, and ...

Killer Green – Buy a T-shirt – Win a Walk on Part!

David Niall Wilson — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 19:02:01 -0700

You read that right. Ambergris Films has given me the go-ahead to up the ante on the contest. It’s a very simple thing. Buy one of the two Killer Green t-shirts, either the Peyote Slim’s shirt, or the Killer Green Crew shirt. When it arrives, put it on and get your camera. Be creative. Take a digital photo and e-mail it to the contest. You can mail one photo for every shirt ...

Writing in Character - You Really Have to Be There

David Niall Wilson — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:40:46 -0700

Writing In Character - You Have to Be There By David Niall Wilson • May 4, 2009 • Comments (11) [Edit] This past weekend I bought a book just for idea hunting. The book is titled 101 Things Everyone Should Know about Science and it covers, in very short bursts, interesting scientific tidbits. One that I read early on in the book is that all Navel Oranges ...

The Times, They are a Changing - And So Should You

David Niall Wilson — Mon, 04 May 2009 06:58:21 -0700

Every now and then I get the urge to speak my mind. Those of you who read my various columns and blogs across the net are probably aware of this. I’ve talked about books and publishing before, but looking back I think a lot has changed since the last time I did so, so I believe I’ll take a stab at the state of things, as I see it . . . The economy is in the crapper. There’s no doubt of ...