Author Birthday – 28 October – Joe R. Lansdale

Happy Birthday, Joe R. Lansdale, born on 28 October 1951.

Joe R. Lansdale Quotes

1. I was never a reader of one sort of fiction, but there was certainly a time when science fiction was the largest part of my diet, and it stayed that way through my youth and into my teens. I still have a science-fiction writer’s heart.
2. I don’t give genre much thought. I certainly am solidly based in genre fiction, and have discovered that so-called literary stories are merely another genre, but the real lesson I’ve learned is this: Is the story good?
3. I think good stories come from writing for yourself, not others. If you create something that excites you, most likely it will excite others as well. It’s the only thing that works for me as a writer.
4. I have fun writing stories. The stories are sometimes brightly lit, and sometimes they lie in deep shadow. More often than not, they contain both dark and light and strobe a bit.
5. Most of my characters come out of real life.
6. For me the backstory works best by letting the reader find out about the characters a little at a time, so that when you get to the end what happens to them matters because you know them.
7. Bottom line: Just write the story you feel, and do it as clearly as possible.
8. I get the urge to tell a tale, and it feels like I’m full and I need to drop a story load. I just start writing. The story shows up. I might have an image, an idea, or some such before or while I’m writing, but on novels … rarely a plot line.
9. I do have a schedule. I get up in the morning, have coffee, check email, and write. Today I’m doing these questions as part of my writing, but I’m also working on a story shortly. I average about three hours in the morning, and then I’m done. I try to get three to five pages a day, which is usually reasonably easy.
10. I don’t wait for inspiration, since it’s me doing the inspiring. The more I do it, the more natural it feels and the more ideas flow and inspiration strikes. Inspiration daily beats waiting for it to show up. Waiting is really, for most folks, just goofing off, even if they don’t want to admit it.

Source for quotes: Joe R. Lansdale

Joe R. Lansdale is an American writer of western, horror, science fiction, mystery, and suspense stories. He is the author of 50 novels and 400 shorter works, including stories, essays, reviews, film and TV scripts, stage plays, introductions and magazine articles, as well as a book of poetry. His Hap and Leonard series of 15 novels, four novellas, and three short-story collections feature two friends, Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, who live in East Texas, and find themselves solving a variety of often unpleasant crimes. The latest in the series is Petrified Dreams. Other novels include Rusty Puppy, the Edgar-award winning The Bottoms, Sunset and Sawdust, and Leather Maiden. Features of Lansdale’s writing are usually deeply ironic, strange or absurd situations or characters. Lansdale’s work has been made into films, animation, comics, and he has won numerous awards including the Edgar, Raymond Chandler life time award, numerous Bram Stoker Awards, Lifetime Horror Award, and the Spur Award.

Source for photograph: Hachette

by Amanda Patterson
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