On Writing Archives - John Isaac Jones

I have been a writer, a scribe, a man of letters, a guy who puts words on paper for as long as I can remember. I have been a reporter (for about a million years) and a fiction writer since around 2012. I denote that special year because that was when I completed Alabama Stories, a collection of short stories about my years in my native Cotton state. It got some good reviews and won a couple awards. That was encouraging. Then I floundered through the next eight years writing all manner of different fictional genres. There was romance, a book about tabloid reporting, a murder mystery, a romantic comedy, several horror stories and ghosts and the supernatural, two novellas of family fiction and a couple of romantic sci-fi yarns. The sales were okay, but not as good as I would have liked. Finally, in the fall of 2018, I undertook to write a biographical novel about the life of Edgar Allan Poe. I had been a big fan of Poe since the eighth-grade when I first read the words: “For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel lee; and the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes…” At the time, I thought those were the most beautiful words of poetry I had ever read.” Further, I felt he would be a good subject I could relate to since we were both Southerners, he a Virginian and I an Alabamian. In late June of 2020, two months shy of two years, the novel about Poe’s life, A Quiet Madness, was completed. After my editor read the manuscript, she said: “You have found your niche! The only thing you should ever write is biographical novels.” And she was right. I had a wonderful time writing the book and it has sold well. Now, I’m in the middle of my second biographical novel which has a working title of A Sagebrush Soul: a biographical novel of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, also known as Mark twain. That book is about 55 per cent written. I’m not sure how long it will take me but I’m shooting for this fall. The Poe book took me almost two years to research and write it. On the other hand, Mark Twain’s life experiences were much more varied and expansive than Poe’s, so I think it will probably take me a little longer. Like I said I’m shooting for this fall to complete it. Will keep you posted!

The Writing Life: Part I

Where do you get ideas?

Funny how people always seem to ask me that. And it’s a fair question. I can remember, as a young writer, asking that question myself. First, ideas are everywhere, but you must exercise caution in choosing them. You might get an idea from some an experience, an observation, some artistic influence, some snippet of conversation, just a few words from a TV program or even a passing photo you saw on the internet. The main thing is to always be on the lookout for a good story idea. If you’re watching, you’ll find them. Once you find one, jot it down so you won’t forget it!!

And you never know when one will pop up. They come out of nowhere. I got the idea for my short story The Old Indian during a conversation with a distant relative at my aunt’s funeral in Alabama. Many years ago, while I was in high school, I watched a construction worker have an affair with a woman who lived near the construction project he was working on. Many years later, I wondered what happened to the man and woman after the project was finished. In 2015, I wrote my novel The Duck Springs Affair.

In 1975, when I was a try-out reporter with The National Enquirer I heard the story of the famous Chillingworth murders in Palm Beach County, Florida. At the time I was fascinated with the story. One summer night in 1955, Palm Beach Judge Curtis Chillingworth and his wife Marjorie disappeared from their beach home at Manalapan, Florida and were never seen again. Preliminary evidence indicated they had been kidnapped, taken out to sea and murdered. It was a tale which, at the time I read it, I knew I would never forget it.

Over the next 42 years, from 1975-2017, that story marinated deep within my subconscious mind, shaping and reshaping itself until I had the plot for a novel. In 2017, I wrote The Hand of God, a historical novel based on the Chillingworth murders.

So, from the initial germ of the idea until the actual work was written was 42 years. That’s a long time for an idea to grow in your mind before it becomes a published work, but that’s how it happened.

Many times, stories have grown out of incidents which occurred in my life. My short story The Old Men grew out of an incident which occurred when I was a teenager at my father’s grocery store. My novella Boone was based on an incident which happened to me as a young child.

The important thing to remember about ideas is they are everywhere, but you must be very selective about which ones you choose to write about. That’s why, if you’re a serious writer, you should have a notebook with you at all times and, when you see a promising idea, you jot it down. Many times, these ideas will produce nothing at first but, after your imagination works on them for a while, a full-blown plot will suddenly pop up out of nowhere. You don’t know how it happened or why your imagination put that particular cast on the idea, but it happened.

Remember that story ideas are everywhere. The main thing is to always be on the lookout for them. And once you find one, make a note then let your subconscious mind work on it. Before you know it, you’ll have the making of a solid literary work. That’s the creative process!!