A simple request but a tough job, I know. I have authored 4 books now, started my fifth and edited 7 horror anthologies.

I like to pretend that I am part of a new breed of author. I like to blend and mix genres to suit the story’s purpose and to enhance the reader’s excitement. I don’t know of other writers who do it to the extent that I do. There are cross-genre writers who write a Sci-Fi piece with steamy romance/horror/erotica/ etc. But it is all in the name of the god known simply as ‘Entertainment’. It is because of this beast, we all love to a point, that makes writers do the things they do; it is why we are usually quiet (studying the world) or watching life play out, semi-antisocial and the reason why many of us tend to think: WHAT IF…?

I do not fall into that group of writers. I tend to think this way: Next this shit is going to happen, and then this and this and this. WOW, this dude is fucked. But maybe he can… Shit he is the main character he has to be able to….

Then again who knows?

Some writers need everything to be done and mapped out almost 100% before they start to write. They worry over the details, tiny facts and figures. They tend to take forever to get the story the way they feel it needs to be. Others we just sit and write from the get go. They know nothing of their characters, or facts, figures and whatnot. They have the idea and run with it.

Me?

Well, I’m somewhere in the middle and I lean toward the phrase: Writing by the seat of one’s pants.

I know where I want to story to go. The main plot is formed well before I think of anything else. When I write the characters that’s when I find the subplots and the hatred hiding behind the mask of ‘friendly neighbor’.

I cannot write if I have ALL the answers, all the information at hand. I have no need for this stuff. The idea is to just tell a story.

What a boring life knowing the answer to everything.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think screwing up the facts is a good thing. Koontz did that when he had his character fire a revolver and later, after he finished firing there were casings scattered over the floor. Umm, we all know that revolvers don’t spit out spent casings. This was an error of the facts. An error the agent and editor and publisher and hundreds of other readers missed.

It is our job, as writers, to try < <---- TRY, to get the facts correct. We have to do research and we must do a lot of reading. We must learn what we do not know. What we do not understand needs, nay, begs us to unravel it's mysteries. It is in our nature to lift the covers and peek under the bed--to answer the voices only we can hear.

It’s the way of our life. It is what we do. It cannot be ignored. Knowledge is not a shirt to be tossed into the closet for fear of a neighbor realizing you don’t know the answer to life, the universe and everything.

It is to be twisted and wrung and hung out to dry, so the two words that drive hundreds of thousands of writers to the computer or typewriter every single god-damned day, will keep them going. Keep them learning and keep them with the Muse.

And hopefully tell a damn good story along the way.

There is another way to look at it. I call it “LW” or Lee’s Way. My latest offering (still in post submission) Darkness, deals with infection, Hell, a living breathing shadow and purple rain. My novel Gonzo Girls, being released May 2006, is about a living virus inside a computer generated world. A virus that wants to escape the confines of the Game. The virus does what it must to achieve this and succeeds for a time.

I know nothing of infections spread via the eyeball. I have never played an online game. But, still I wrote this books. I investigated the facts after the writing and realized I had made new rules–which to my surprise–fit the game concept well enough to keep the story near a reality base.

All I did was write a story and keep everything in perspective. What I mean by that is all the things that happened, or could happen, could really truly happen in our world.

I try to keep the story as much as possible based in a world the average reader can understand. It is also a place I can understand. And from here, I start flinging ink.