Notch
Writing
The first novel I wrote was Nowhere Blvd ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006R4RTSE/ ). I had wanted to write one for most of my life, but could never get the verve to pull it off. So, I decided to start with what was intended to be a shorter story, but ended up being short novel length. Ed Ayala had these amazing characters and place in mind for a story, so I asked him if he would let me give it a shot.
At first it was really hard concentrating. I had to get in the habit of punishing myself. I would get home from work about 10:30pm, tired and hungry. I would unplug the internet, put on music with no drums, vocals, or discernible harmony, and tell myself I had to write two pages before I was allowed to eat dinner.
Writer's block vs stomach.
I ended up getting a really painful case of carpel tunnel from it, that plagued me for years after, until I finally learned micro muscle control from transcendental meditation.
One time while writing, a swarm of baby spiders crawled out of my monitor and flooded the apartment. I eventually figured out they were being driven out by the heat, but it was still a serious horror moment.
My second book ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006OTGEX8/) was in a way much harder. I'd gotten to where I could listen to normal music while writing, but it was an attempt to combine three book ideas into one, a practice that one author once called "A fixer upper." I wanted to write about this MIT urban legend of a lost computer room, as well as ideas that had been put into my brain as a little boy when my parents let me watch Carpenter's Prince of Darkness for some reason (a movie I dreamt of for decades). It is a movie about quantum physics and horror and evil energy, and to this day I strive for high concept sci-fi horror.
The first draft ended up being 120,000 words, and I had to drop 20,000 of them to tighten it up. Still, I sell it is a two parter on Amazon.
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I also have a number of short stories on Amazon. My author page has links to them all, https://www.amazon.com/Ryan-Notch/e/B006R4Q6S8 .
In my opinion, this particular story, What Rough Beast, is the best story I've ever written. I spent weeks trying to think of the ending, after having only had the opening. And endless refrain of "What is that thing they found on the beach," flitting through my head, sleeping and waking.
Then it hit me, I knew what they had found, and it was beyond everything I had hoped for.