The Holocaust Engine

The Holocaust Engine by David Rike and Stephen Patrick

Category: The Writer’s Life (Page 2 of 3)

A Long-Expected Party

September 22, 2020 /

Today is Hobbit Day, the annual day to celebrate the marvel and majesty of Middle-Earth. Whether you came to his work through print, screen, games, film or just meme’s, today’s the perfect day to turn our thoughts back to the Shire and the journey that J. R. R. Tolkien set out for us.

Today’s question: What do you think of J. R. R. Tolkien and what he built for us?

After you read ours, drop your thoughts and reflections in the comments. and yes, meme’s count.

STEPHEN PATRICK- Like Bilbo and Frodo, we all took that first leap of faith to leave our comforts to follow a powerful magician on an incredible adventure that dramatically changed our lives. JRRT works on so many levels, he created complete stories within a larger universe ripe for deeper exploration. It’s worth the trip, but so much fun to stop and look around along the way.

DAVID RIKE – We’re not supposed to covet, but my gosh wouldn’t it be nice to define an entire genre all by yourself?  But then, what did he do?  He mined European folklore (basically the greatest hits in storytelling over the centuries) and then fashioned an earth that a lot of us would rather live in than the modern, real thing.

When pen hits the page

September 20, 2020 /

Today’s “Writer’s Life” post explores the “when” of our writing:

When do you write and why?

DAVID RIKE: I like morning best.  I’ve found I only have a certain amount of creativity each day and if I don’t use it writing I wind up exhausting it just in the other details of my day.

STEPHEN PATRICK: Morning before the family is awake and late at night when they are asleep are my most productive times. I’m a big fan of speech-to-text, so I’ve crafted scenes and ideas while driving to work and while on the treadmill. To be fair, I’ve also sketched a few scenes in waiting rooms and on a train ride downtown.

Writer Wednesday

September 16, 2020 /

One of the best things about being a writer is having writer friends. The creative churn of new releases, WIPs, and discussions about what they’re working on is inspiring.

To celebrate the release of “The Holocaust Engine” by Evolved Publishing, I want to hear what my friends are working on. Drop your links, or even thoughts about that new WIP in the comments below.

Show us what’s out there and what’s coming.

September 14, 2020 /

With the release of “The Holocaust Engine”, here is a guide to our corner of the web. This post should help you get started with what you may find here and why you should take a look around or subscribe to keep up with our updates.

http://holocaustengine.com/ has three goals:

  • Provide a home for news and insights related to “The Holocaust Engine”, our thriller trilogy set in Key West, FL.
  • Provide a platform for deeper dives into the book for those readers who want to learn more
  • Provide a place for to share inspirations and and insights related to writing and the process that guides the development of this series and the authors’ writing processes.

Whether you find what you’re looking for or you want something more, please let us know in the comments or simply like/share as you wish.

The end?

September 13, 2020 /

All good things must come to an end, but some endings are better than others. We started this journey to our launch date talking about famous first lines. While we hope this journey never ends, it made us think about last lines. Sometimes they are the perfect bow on a perfect package. Othertimes, they leave us wanting more.

Books, movies, whatever comes to mind, we’d love to see yours in the comments. Here are a few of ours:

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” Animal Farm George Orwell

“He loved Big Brother.” 1984, George Orwell

“And so farewell from your little droog. And to all others in this story profound shooms of lip-music brrrrr. And they can kiss my sharries. But you, O my brothers, remember sometimes thy little Alex that was. Amen. And all that cal.” A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

“Later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake.” Dracula, Bram Stoker

“And strangest of all is it to hold my wife’s hand again, and to think that I have counted her, and that she has counted me, among the dead.” War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells

“I take his hand, holding tightly, preparing for the cameras, and dreading the moment when I will finally have to let go.”  The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

 “To the eternal glory of the infantry—“ Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein

And just for fun:

“The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door…”

Dog-eared pages and faded ink

September 11, 2020 /

Today’s thought experiment is about “that one book”, the one with the worn edges, the notes in the margins, the one that has traveled with you through time and space.

Other than religious volumes, what is “that one book” on your shelf that you’ve read the most often? Drop yours in the comments, and add any backstory that goes with it!

Ours are below. Mine is a bit classic, and, to be expected, David’s is hyper-practical.

STEPHEN:

This one is easy, albeit a bit straightforward. This 1978 paperback packs nearly 800 pages of horror classics with an introduction by Stephen King. I’ve read it for curiosity, pleasure, school, research, inspiration and sometimes just because I had it nearby (and it fits in a coat pocket). I’ve carried it to both U.S. coasts as a traveling companion and it has three decades of margin notes, ideas and wear. A decade ago, I laminated the cover to keep it from falling apart. There is no single volume in my library that holds such a powerful influence on my reading/writing habits for horror, science fiction and literature.

DAVID: I have an edible plant field guide for the Rockies that we take with us on vacation every year. I’d take the kids plant hunting and we’d hike all over.  Tried to make Choke Cherry jam one year and I still can’t figure out how to get Amaranth out of Lambs Ear….  Those seeds are  tiny.

Evolved Publishing

September 10, 2020 /

One of the toughest parts of being a writer is finding a path from the lonely, blank page to your reader.

One of the easiest has been working with our publisher and editor. Lane Diamond and his team at Evolved Publishing gave the Holocaust Engine a home and have been terrific partners on our journey.

We’ve mentioned our love for Kabir Shah’s artistry. Lane is another powerful ally, a coach and master editor, who helped polish and refine our words into the final product that comes out next week.

In addition to our story, take a look around the full catalog. There are stories, books, and audiobooks for every taste and genre and a few that defy easy explanation. Once you dive in, you may not want to come up for air.

Here’s a quick view of what you may find:

Out of nowhere?

September 4, 2020 /

One of the joys of being a writer is finding inspiration in the most unusual spaces.

My question for today: What is the most obscure thing you’ve read/seen in the past month that impacts your writing?

Here’s a few gems we’ve found in obscure places that have impacted our writing. Leave your own in the comments or feel free to comment on ours. Enjoy!

DAVID RIKE

Attack of the Mushroom People is a Japanese horror movie from the 60’s on Amazon Prime.  It’s actually good.  Mostly just a stranded-on-an-island-survival-movie.  Surprisingly smart script, you know, for a story about attacking mushroom people.

STEPHEN PATRICK

The Imjin War by @Samuel Hawley explores the Japanese invasion of Korea from 1592-98. Ostensibly, a historical piece about an obscure time period and a sliver of history that was never covered in my world history classes, Mr. Hawley builds an incredible narrative about human interactions, strategy, and drama. Based on original sources, it is filled with colorful characters, immersive settings, and page-turning scenes. Add in palace intrigue, samurai and naval combat with Geobukseon (“Turtle ships”), it filled my notebook with inspirations for several current and future projects.

What we’re reading

September 4, 2020 /

From Stephen Patrick:

blur book stack books bookshelves
a romantic setting in the bathroom
adult blur books close up

One of the best things about working with a writing partner is how we compliment each other to make us and our stories better.

Our individual reading tastes are hard to describe, but we both have a unique discipline beneath the madness. Below is a small snippet of what we are reading as The Holocaust Engine prepares to launch. Please share your own in the comments. We’d love to see where you are casting your gaze these days.

DAVID:

Every year I have a reading list with categories: classic, course study topic, recent sci fi, new author, etc.)  I just finished this year’s classic, Joyce’s Ulysses, hated it.  All high brow mainstream fiction is self-serving but Ulysses just seemed to hold its readers in contempt..After that I read Greg Bear, Hull Zero Three — which was a fantastic palate cleanser.

STEPHEN:

I love the art of discovery in reading. Each year, I split my targets among science non-fiction, history/biographical, top 10 contemporary fiction, classic fiction and “literary” classics. My stack is currently anchored by the Norton Anthology of English Literature (the 3k page powerhouse we hated in school), which gets me from Blake to Kipling to Conrad to Achebe. It sits next to my palate cleanser: Fritz Lieber’s “Our Lady of Darkness”. “The Biggest Bluff” by Maria Konnikova and “The Great Influenza” by John Barry complete the stack and keep the lights on deep into the night.

Where to start?

September 2, 2020 /

As we move toward the release of The Holocaust Engine and our own first lines, it seems fitting to drop a few of our favorite fiction first lines.

Add yours in the comments section

  • It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984 
  •  A screaming comes across the sky. —Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
  • All this happened, more or less. —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five 
  • He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. —Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
  •  It was a pleasure to burn. —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
  • In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 
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