Ask the Author: David Vining
Answered Questions (3)
David Vining
I'm currently reading The Book of the New Sun, a book my mother gave me way back in high school that I read then and have wanted to revisit for some time. Next I'll be reading Shusaku Endo's The Samurai, another gift from my mother, which I have let languish on my shelf for too long.
After that, I don't know. The Lord of the Rings? I read it five times in high school and haven't touched it since. Maybe.
After that, I don't know. The Lord of the Rings? I read it five times in high school and haven't touched it since. Maybe.
David Vining
Colonial Nightmare is based on a real event from the life of George Washington. I read about the event in a biography of Washington sometime in grad school, and the story stuck with me for years. I once tried to write the story straight in novel form and quickly lost interest, but I never let go of the great idea that the story could have in a novel form. Partially inspired by Seth Grahame-Smith's Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, I decided that the most interesting direction for me to take this story was to inject a bit of the supernatural.
I consciously made it a horror novel, and I worked very hard to make the horror multi-faceted. On top is the very real concerns about an impending war in Europe that would spill out over the American continent, sweeping up Washington's home along with it. The second layer is the incredibly difficult weather conditions that the entire party had to face constantly through those weeks that did threaten them all with frostbite and freezing. The third is the monster, the creature that pursues the party for reasons all its own.
The greatest inspiration was the story itself which has, innately, a "there and back again" story structure. This led me to thinking of Joseph Campbell and The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the same work of comparative mythology that inspired George Lucas in his writing of the original Star Wars. I purchased Campbell's work, read it, and used as many of the traits of the monomyth in the story that I could comfortably fit in with the story that seemed to so effortlessly align with the larger contours of the idea.
I also feel like Lovecraft had a great feeling on horror that I enjoy, creating this sense of unbridled terror that drives men to insanity because the source is so outside of our experience, so I like to tinge the horror with that. Leaving details out about the creature itself that would give it specific detail but never losing sense of the rules I establish for it myself, it creates a sense in the reader that there's more to understand that they'll never get, making the horror less understandable and relatable which makes it more terrifying at the same time.
I consciously made it a horror novel, and I worked very hard to make the horror multi-faceted. On top is the very real concerns about an impending war in Europe that would spill out over the American continent, sweeping up Washington's home along with it. The second layer is the incredibly difficult weather conditions that the entire party had to face constantly through those weeks that did threaten them all with frostbite and freezing. The third is the monster, the creature that pursues the party for reasons all its own.
The greatest inspiration was the story itself which has, innately, a "there and back again" story structure. This led me to thinking of Joseph Campbell and The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the same work of comparative mythology that inspired George Lucas in his writing of the original Star Wars. I purchased Campbell's work, read it, and used as many of the traits of the monomyth in the story that I could comfortably fit in with the story that seemed to so effortlessly align with the larger contours of the idea.
I also feel like Lovecraft had a great feeling on horror that I enjoy, creating this sense of unbridled terror that drives men to insanity because the source is so outside of our experience, so I like to tinge the horror with that. Leaving details out about the creature itself that would give it specific detail but never losing sense of the rules I establish for it myself, it creates a sense in the reader that there's more to understand that they'll never get, making the horror less understandable and relatable which makes it more terrifying at the same time.
David Vining
It's not so much writer's block as just needing to find the motivation to actually sit down and do it. I'm never at a loss for what I should write next (I have scraps of ideas written all over the place on little post it notes), and when I'm in the middle of a project I have done so much planning on how the book will go it's most about just getting to the next point on the outline than inventing anything.
In dealing with motivation, I find it useful to separate myself from the rest of my life into a physical writing space. That was easier in the days when I worked in an office building. I could pull myself up from my desk, grab my binder of loose-leaf paper, and find an unused conference room. There I would write for a solid hour with little to no distraction, and I could manage at least three hand-written pages in that time. Now that I work from home, it's harder to make myself do something like that, and I have yet to find a truly consistent balance.
I'm working at it every day, though!
In dealing with motivation, I find it useful to separate myself from the rest of my life into a physical writing space. That was easier in the days when I worked in an office building. I could pull myself up from my desk, grab my binder of loose-leaf paper, and find an unused conference room. There I would write for a solid hour with little to no distraction, and I could manage at least three hand-written pages in that time. Now that I work from home, it's harder to make myself do something like that, and I have yet to find a truly consistent balance.
I'm working at it every day, though!
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