Thanks for Reading!
Any support, even just giving these posts a read, is always appreciated.
Recent Updates:
My debut Southern Dark Fantasy novel BEYOND THE RUINED NIGHTS is officially OUT!
It’s available literally everywhere books are sold. Want my recs?
Get the Ebook here: Campfire
Get Paperback and Hardback here: Bookshop.org
Can’t afford to buy a copy? I’m happy to announce that my book is also available on HOOPLA through your local public library!
I’ve also updated my website to highlight my short fiction! Head on over!
Project Progress:
September has been very busy because of my day job, so I’m sorry to say that I haven’t made any progress on book 2. It’s still sitting at around 65%.
Recent Fascinations: The Fiction Stories that Made Me | Introduction and Honorable Mentions
Now that I’m finally on the other side of my debut novel coming out, I feel like I can direct some attention to a different topic that has been on my mind for a while, the stories that have really shaped my writing and my perception of the world.
I had the idea for this project a while back, I think as far back as May, but knew that I didn’t have the time or the energy to devote to it. I’ve talked before about my favorite books of all time in some light detail, but I’ve never really sat down to examine what my most cherished stories mean to me, how they shaped my personality and my writing, or how my perception on them has changed over time.
So, now that I’m on the other side of my book’s launch, I want to officially set out and tackle this series of posts. It will be month by month between now and next August, totalling out 12 posts.
This post will discuss my honorable mentions.
Then each month for 10 months I will examine my 10 most cherished fiction novels, what they mean to me, and how they’ve influenced me.
Then, in a final post, I will discuss my “dishonorable” mentions, examining a few picks that I can’t deny influenced me, but, because of one reason or another, I really wish they hadn’t.
So, that’s enough introduction. Let’s get on with it, huh?
Honorable Mentions
As I started putting together my top 10 list, I realized there were a lot of major influences on my life I couldn’t, for one reason or another, include in that main list. So, instead of tackling them month by month, I’m going to lay out all of the “almosts” here, how they’ve influenced me, and why they didn’t make the cut.
These are in no particular order.
1. THE LAST APPRENTICE Series, by Joseph Delaney
How It Influenced Me: This series was probably the only YA series I really got into in high school. As a school-aged reader, I, admittedly insufferably, spent most of my time reading classics, literary fiction, and Stephen King. I have no real memories of landmark YA series making any significant impact on me, except this one. I never finished it, the series wasn’t finished and my high school library was very slow about acquiring books, but I loved what I did read, and Delaney’s interweaving and reexamination of traditional English folklore heavily influenced what I do with Southern Folklore in my own work.
Why I Didn’t Include It: I didn’t finish it then, and I have never gone back to it. Though, since Delaney passed a few years ago, maybe it’s time I finally revisit this and see if it holds up to my modern tastes.
2. The Fiction of Louis Lamour
How It Influenced Me: Boy howdy, where do I start with this one. It’s bold, I guess, to claim an entire bibliography as an influence. I started to choose a series, like THE SACKETTS, or a single work like HONDO, but in the end I think it is just Lamour as a writer that rests most firmly in my mind as an influence. My father, who for most of my life as a kid and a young man was a trucker, was a collector and reader of Louis Lamour. I grew up on his stories, on the adaptations of his stories, on the importance of those pulp western masterpieces. His depiction of nature, of the dichotomy of good and evil have had huge influences on me, but most of all it was the experience of growing up watching my dad read those little novels that led me to my life as a reader.
Why I Didn’t Include It: I think this one speaks for itself from what I’ve already said. I couldn’t decide on a single work that truly influenced me, and instead it is that I grew up around those old books. I still have most of them, given to me by my dad after he decided he was done with them. In one way or another, Lamour will always be with me.
3. The Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft
How It Influenced Me: Once again, I have included an entire bibliography here. This one, I will admit, almost ended up in the “dishonorable mentions”, and maybe it should have, but at the end of the day I couldn’t bring myself to put it there. Yes, Lovecraft was a reprehensible monster of a man, a deeply complicated man who seemed to struggle with mental health and his own sexuality, but regardless of any of that was profoundly racist, even by the measure of his day. However, much like Stephen King has often said, I cannot deny the influence that Lovecraft’s writings have had on me. I was very young, around 13, when I read Rats in the Walls for the first time, and it changed how I conceptualized horror and character writing even before I understood that I was conceptualizing those things. The entirety of my writing life has stood in the shadow of Lovecraft, so, despite his horrible flaws, I will give him this single moment of merit.
Why I Didn’t Include It: This time it wasn’t quite the same as Lamour. I could have easily included “Rats in the Walls” or “At the Mountains of Madness” in the works that most influenced me, but I chose not to. While Lovecraft has undeniably influenced the color and timbre of my writing, I also often try to distance myself from his style intellectually because of just how horrible of a person he was.
4. THE WHEEL OF TIME, by Robert Jordan
How it Influenced Me: I think, if I were to be fair to myself and why this series is here, it should say “How it IS INFLUENCING Me”, because I am currently still in the process of reading this series. Even though, as soon as I started reading it, I knew it would change how I look at fantasy as a genre and what is possible with long-term storytelling. Though I started BEYOND THE RUINED NIGHTS before I ever started reading Jordan’s series, his work has already begun to influence my writing, and I am confident it will continue to do so.
Why I Didn’t Include It: Because I haven’t finished it! While its influence on me is already apparent, at least to me, I am not yet ready to claim Jordan as a major influence. Who knows, if I redo this list in ten years time, it could be that Jordan makes his way to the main list.
5. THE OUTSIDERS, by S.E. Hinton
How It Influenced Me: This one is interesting for a number of reasons. Most notably, it’s because I can’t REALLY say that Hinton’s book influenced me in any particular way. While it was one that I, and many other American children, read in highschool, and I did love it, I don’t see any real way that it found its way into my personal writing style. Instead, this book represents a larger figure in my literary life. My 11th grade English teacher, Mrs. Aultman used THE OUTSIDERS for a very particular lesson in her class: a discussion of banned books. It was in that class that I came to understand what censorship was, why it happens, and what I could do about it. For that, I’ll forever be grateful, and it is a lesson that is forever attached to Hinton’s novel in my mind.
Why Didn’t I Include It: I think the reason here is obvious! Because the book itself wasn’t necessarily a major influence on me, but instead it more represents a moment of my life where I started to think about books in terms of power and structure of meaning, to get a little academic.
6. THE REGULATORS, by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)
How It Influenced Me: Come, see this very well. A child, for one as he is can only be called a child, finds on the shelves of his library a book, and within that book was a world unknown, a path taken. Come, for there are other worlds than this, but this one is ours. Anyway, THE REGULATORS, the belated Bachman book that serves as the Twinner story to DESPERATION, was the first Stephen King novel I ever read. 11 years old, I found the thing on the shelves of the school library, and nothing was ever the same. I don’t think I need to say more than that.
Why I Didn’t Include It: While it was my first, it wasn’t my best, if you catch my drift. I still love this book, but there are other, more important King books in my personal cosmos. Don’t worry, we’ll talk a lot about Sai King in the months to come.
Those are them, and these are all there are. Can’t wait to get started on the meat of my biggest influences.
Thanks for Reading.
