Author’s Bio: Vaughn is a writer of speculative fiction, and is the author of the kaiju thriller Up from the Deep, and the upcoming horror novel Touched by Shadows, coming out December 10, 2021. He is also a member of the Horror Writers Association, because everything he writes ends up at least a little scary.
He cites his love of everything geeky as inspiration for his writing style and subject matter. He hopes that his stories unfold like movies in his readers' minds. The word cinematic gets used a lot when he talks about his writing.
Vaughn lives near Baltimore with his girlfriend, two gremlins disguised as the cutest kittens in the world, and a kaiju of a dog, named Constantine.
Deliah Lawrence: How do
you handle writer’s block?
Vaughn A. Jackson: Writer’s block for me often comes
more in the form of lacking motivation to get around to writing. Ideas are
constantly flitting around in my head, and there is no shortage of them. That
in itself can be a problem when I’m trying to make myself focus on one story at
a time. And at times I have found myself stymied because I tried to write three
or four things at once, successfully completing none of them!
The thing that I find to best ensure that my writing is always productive and doesn’t get “blocked” is to set a rather strict schedule for my writing and do it basically everyday (I will often take weekends off so that I can have a social life). 7pm - 9pm works best for me with my work and life schedule, and the consistency keeps me from falling off the rails and losing a month from just not writing!
DL: What is your writing
process?
VAJ: Have an idea. Start writing. Get Lost. Cry. Repeat. Eventually the loop breaks and I have a completed story.
That said, I do have an actual process. But a bit of that joke is accurate. I always start with an idea, sometimes it’s small like my novel Up from the Deep, where I started with the thought “Man, I’d love to write a Godzilla story!” and from there the novel just flooded out, and at other times it comes out in the form of an already fully fleshed out story as with one of the next novels I plan to start working on.
From there I just write. I’m a pantser so outlines accomplish nothing but stress-related hair loss for me. I write until I hit a wall, at which I break out my handing-dandy drill and bore my way through until I can start writing some more.
From there my process gets a little strange (at least in some people’s opinion). Once I have a first draft that I have vaguely skimmed through, I hand it off to three beta readers. Most people say not to show first drafts to the world because they are guaranteed to be not good. I agree with the not good part, but that’s exactly why I hand it out at this stage. If what I’ve written at its worst stage can engage my beta readers and keep them interested, etc. I think I have something worthwhile. You know the phrase: If you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.
While these readers put my words through their unique gauntlets, I like to pretend it doesn’t exist and work on other things until I have all of their feedback, at which point I move back over to the story, break out my scalpels, blowtorches, and chainsaws, and begin the arduous task of crafting a first draft into a real manuscript.
DL: What do you think
makes a good story?
VAJ: Three things: Horror, Hope, Humanity.
Starting easy; Humanity. Or more specifically characters. Without them, nothing drives the story. It’s just a nature documentary (which is fantastic and I love them, but even they tend to highlight certain creatures as the “characters” and provide a loose story). Obviously, I’m not saying your characters have to be human, or even human-like, but they have to be believable and in at least some way relatable. You need some set of characters that a reader can connect with that give them reasons to care about what happens in your story as well as to continually shape and push the events that make up your plot.
Horror is up next. And when I say horror, I don’t mean everyone has to write horror for their story to be good. That would make me wrong, and a jerk. I just liked having three words that began with H. What I mean is that stories are built on fear. Make your reader afraid. Some people may call this tension or conflict (which are two different aspects that I think cause the fear that makes a good story). Some examples of this: In a romance novel, there is a fear that the protagonists won’t end up together because of whatever problems are plaguing their relationship. In a thriller, your reader may be afraid that the bad guy will succeed at unleashing their deadly bio weapon because the hero was too slow. In a horror novel...well, that's an easy one, and I’m sure you get the point. Tension and conflict both cause a sense of fear in your reader. Even if they aren’t aware that they are afraid. This keeps them gripping the pages (and ideally turning them).
Last but not least is Hope. Hope and Horror go hand and hand. Even in the most fatal, gruesome horror novel you want to seed hope so your readers don’t give up out of sheer despair. Even if as an author you plan to go all Game of Thrones on your characters, you want your readers to think “maybe they’ll survive”. In a romance, you want them to hope your couple will end up together even if things look at their worst. I said above that tension and conflict were aspects that cause fear, but it may be more accurate to say that the struggle between horror and hope generates tensions that lead to conflict.
I think knowing how to effectively blend these three H’s gives you a pretty decent foundation for a good story.
DL: What were some of the
challenges when writing this book?
VAJ: The hardest part of writing Touched by Shadows was reconciling all of the emotions that were pouring through me at the moment of its conception. I began writing it in response to the Baltimore Uprising due to the death of Freddie Gray in 2015. The first draft of the story was only twenty-eight thousand words long and it was raw, angry, and utterly bleak. So much so that I actually set it aside for a few years and couldn’t bear to look at it, let alone touch it.
As more things happened in the world, I eventually went back to it with an older (I was twenty when I wrote the first draft) and less raw perspective and I realized that the story needed more than just hurt and anguish and despair...it needed hope, and joy, and goodness too. A healthy balance. There were times where that felt impossible. How could those things exist alongside all the horror I’d seen in the world recently? I struggled a lot writing Touched by Shadows, leaving it and coming back to it multiple times, and wanting to give up even more thinking that maybe it just wasn’t something I could do. Yet I still felt compelled to write it, despite everything.
In the end, several edits, multiple therapy sessions, and too many drafts later I had a story that really knit all of my feelings into something cohesive and still poignant. A horror story about a young black girl with psychic abilities, set upon by two antagonistic forces, one horribly human, and the other supernatural in a way she can hardly comprehend, all while she tries to find her place in the world.
DL: What was the best
writing advice you’ve ever been given?
VAJ: I think the best piece of writing advice I received was advice ABOUT writing advice. No writing advice given is inherently right or wrong. If it works for you, great, and if it doesn’t, don’t use it. The only concrete thing is that you have to write. If you want to succeed, you have to finish. Other than that, do what works for you. Writing is a deeply personal affair and everyone does it differently. Find your style, and if it works for you, keep at it. So maybe: “Write your way”, is the best way to put this piece of advice.
DL: If you could choose a
super power what would it be and why?
VAJ: Years of reading comic books have trained me for exactly this interview question. At last, it is time! Telekinesis. It’s one of the most versatile powers! You can rearrange atoms with your mind, or you can just pull the remote to you from the other side of the sofa. You can make invisible force fields to protect you, or you can never have to walk up steps, even if the elevator in your building is broken! Not to mention everything in between!
DL: What tips would you
give to aspiring writers?
VAJ: I had to think about this, because so often I see things like “Just write”, or “Write what you know”, or “Find the Necronomicon, and beg the Elder Gods for the Ancient Muse”, and I didn’t want to give any of these answers, though if you manage to pull off #3...let’s talk. So, I’ll just say this: “Don’t discount what you are capable of.”
DL: What do you like to do
when you are not writing?
VAJ: I’m a pretty big gamer, with a real love for everything Pokémon, so I tend to spend a fair amount of time doing that. I am both an avid book collector with too little shelf space, and an avid reader (though I feel like this applies to most writers). Much to my girlfriend’s chagrin I have taken a liking to collecting fountain pens, and while my collection is still small at the moment...soon! I also enjoy watching old-science fiction movies, drinking scotch, and getting on my friends' nerves with hour-long spiels on whatever interest has taken my fancy for the month.
DL: What new projects are
you currently working on?
VAJ: I’ve got two novels that I’m working on, and a third on the backburner. As well as whatever short stories decide to play havoc with my attention span in the coming months! I don’t want to spoil too much, but I will say that one of the works in progress is the sequel to Up from the Deep, and the other is a sword and sorcery novel in the vein of Elric of Melniboné, and is something I’m exceptionally excited to complete and get to everyone in the future! I also have a Southern Gothic vampire novel out on submission at the moment that I hope will get picked up soon.
DL: Where can readers
learn more about you and purchase your book(s)?
VAJ: They can find out more here:
- Website: https://vaughnthewordslinger.weebly.com/
- Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Vaughn-A-Jackson/e/B08YX14HK1/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blaximillion
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blaximillion_author/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/blaximillion
- Book Buy Links:
DL: Thanks so much for being here with us today. I know
my readers will enjoy getting to know you and your work.
VAJ: Thank you!
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