The Write Stuff: Completing the Trilogy

Day 25


I officially did it.

NaNoWrMo opened up their official word counter and I plugged in my novel and I won. The word count for my little novel is currently at 59,624. And I am VERY close to the end and I am pretty pumped.

So what happens next? My next goal is to have it completely ended by the month's end and then it goes to some serious editing. The goal after that is to get it ready to publish. I confirmed on NaNoWrMo's site that everything I heard from Tyler is correct. So now I am doubly pumped!


So what are my influences? I'll be honest, I am not a big book reader. I own few novels. Comic books has been the biggest influence of my writing. And for those that think comic books are just juvenile because they contain muscular men and women with big boobs you are mistaken. Sure, there are some books like that but that is merely a stereotype and not always the norm. But comics have not been the only thing, just the majority. This column will just cover the novels. I will write a comic book one sometime in the near future with some recommendations.

One of the first novels I read really made an impact on me. It was back in the 5th grade we read "The White Mountains" By John Christopher. I remember this book rather fondly, it made me appreciate science fiction and made me want to create a world and write. Christopher followed this up with two other books in the "Tripod Trilogy". The middle book, "They City of Gold and Lead" was my favorite. In this book we are introduced to the aliens behind the Tripods. And this is what caught my eye, these villains were not straight bad guys, they had their own personality. That stuck with me quite a bit. I'll have to dig these books out and re-read them sometime.


But my all-time favorite novel is Dracula by Bram Stroker. I try to read this novel every Halloween. There is so much that I love about this book. What made it a unique read was that it was not just a novel but more of a historical record. It is mainly composed of journal and diaries writings and letters written by the main characters. It certainly made it more believable to me. But what got me was Dracula himself. He was so charming, so controlling of a villain. When I write villains, I try to bring those qualities to my characters.

Other books that have influenced me in some way are the Collected Works of Edgar Allen Poe and the Collected Works of Washington Irving. Whenever I want to get a shot of creative juice, I usually will read one of Poe's stories or poems.

I could go into comic book writers that have influenced me but I would also like to take the time to make some recommendations too. So that will be a separate column.