Cold

There is a twisted, tangled, and often tactical relationship between true stories and works of fiction. True stories can inspire and influence a fiction author's work, bringing a level of enchantment to her story. Or a true story can stumble its way into a perfectly good tale and wreck it, make it seem unreal somehow.  But when it's done right, it can change an author's heart and blow a reade...

I've always used music to juice myself creatively. I can't imagine writing a work of fiction without using music as an inspiration, and even go so far as to actually build soundtracks for every story in my catalogue. That's why on this week's Cold, we're talking music and its often crucial, magical connection to the construction of a story. I use a variety of music genres to inspire my work, and t...

I often forget how opaque the creative process may seem – even to those who live with artists. Few people outside the realm of painters, writers, musicians and their ilk have anything more than a rudimentary understanding of the way it all really works. That's why I thought it might be interesting if we tried to articulate some of the steps that go into writing of a work of fiction. To pick throug...

In honor of the coming 4th of July Holiday here in America, we're going to take some time here on Cold to celebrate independence, free thought, and free living. We'll do it through the lenses of both fiction and non-fiction, and talk about my own personal stories of Cold War adventure that include my family's dangerous exploits and my life and travels in post-communist Eastern and Central Europe....

We are all time-travellers of a sort. Maybe few of us actually step into a time machine or through some standing stones and find ourselves in a new (or rather, old) time and place, but jumps in time happen to us nonetheless. It's when we visit an old haunt, move to a new city, or start going out into the world again after a long pandemic lockdown. That, too, makes us move in time. It's juices us c...

Men. As a writer and a woman, this is a topic of endless fascination for me. Given that I'm a thriller writer at my core, and add to that the fact that I've been endeavoring to write a great, epic romance filled with sensuality, violence and adventure, it's a topic that's become of great professional interest over the years. Because writing men of adventure is the easy part. We know what to expect...

Writers of historical characters and events have always had to balance being true to a given era and yet relatable to contemporary readers. But doing this is easier said than done...especially in today's cultural climate. That's why we're talking about the strictures that political correctness can place on writers of Historical Fiction, and whether this is having an impact on the genre both artist...

This week in the Cold, we're talking about the writing life in all of its complicated glory. Not only how we writers evolve and develope the daily habits that allow us to finish massive pieces of work, like a novel, but the emotional journey of mining our personal experiences for our creative efforts. How very differently we deploy our imaginations when writing fiction versus non-fiction, and the...

Last year, about six weeks before the COVID lockdowns hit, I made a vow to say yes to any invitation that came my way - no matter who it was from or what kind of event I was getting myself into. The results, in just those few short weeks, were dramatic. Not only did I end up at a freakin' KISS concert (I did say I'd accept ANY invitation, right?), but I made new and true friendships that helped ta...

Pain is awful, frightening, destablizing, and thrilling. Yes, thrilling! It's why a writer must put her characters through the wringer or else risk losing the reader. We want to experience a character having to do battle, to transcend agonizing, sometimes impossible circumstances, to rise above them, or perhaps, as a cautionary tale, let their pain consume them. Reading about pain is a dress rehea...

I don't know anyone who has not fallen under the spell of the moon at one time or another. We stand under the full moon, gazing up into her face, letting her cold, blue light wash over us. We dream, we yearn, we make wishes. We stay up to photograph supermoons, like many of us did last week when a pink supermoon appeared in our skies. Every creative person I know believes in muses of some sort, or...

This week in the Cold, we're talking about what a bad writing day is really like. We've all had them. Days when none of our usual tricks work. We can't go for a walk to reboot - the weather is crap, no amount of research or internet surfing is delivering that spark of inspiration, the words trip out onto the page like bad dancers. But there's a method to the madness, and there are ways we can turn...

This week in the Cold, we're talking about the noble art of writing way outside of our experience. "Write what you know" is not bad advice for a beginning writer. It gives us a place to start that's familiar and tangible. But it's incomplete, because a crucial part of the magic of writing fiction, or non fiction for that matter, is in discovery. Imagination is the fairy dust that makes our stories...

This week in the Cold, we talk about beauty. The way it shapes how we view the world and how it can alter our perceptions for good or ill. The role beauty plays in how we write or interpret a story and its characters is crucial and infinite. Because beauty is about so much more than a pretty face or a hot body. In great stories, we use it to inspire empathy, to foment passion, to find the weakness...

Whether we wander in our backyards or neighborhoods, or wander all over the world, wandering is an important prerequisite for any creative person. It juices us, opens the doors to the made-up worlds that we build and inhabit when it all gets to be too much. Wherever and however we wander, wandering enriches our lives in ways we can rarely predict. And we rarely regret that we ever embarked on the...

Last time in the Cold, we talked about where we write and how the places where we compose our stories help us create worlds that a reader can experience with all of their senses. How our various talismans - photos, artifacts, books, furniture - discipline and inspire us. Today, we're looking at place a little bit differently. We're pondering the places we write about and how they can serve as the...

Today in the Cold, we're talking about how the spaces we occupy when we endeavor to write or create affect our work, and inspire our imaginations. Place is very important to me. I like to surround myself with talismans, artifacts, and photos that help me build my fictional universes from the ground up. That's why I'm going to give you a tour of my home office - where I love to create. Some of the...

I'm Victoria Dougherty, fiction and essay writer, blogger, collector of family lore. And I want to welcome you into the Cold . Cold is the way revenge is best served; the way a war was fought; the way a story should be told. It's a forum for people who love great stories. Ones that are real, made up, and everything in between. The kind that make you take a sharp inhale of breath and dig-your-finge...