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About Duncan Ralston
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Blog postOkay, I apologize for that clickbaity title. Of course 3 stars hasn't transposed 5. But I do want to talk about the 3-Star Review and why I generally like them. This started last week when I received a couple of 3-star reviews for my new novel, Ghostland. Both were great reviews. (Just so I'm not mistaken, I appreciate all of my reviews and the readers who provide them, whether they liked the book or didn't think much of it.) The first of these reviews was critical and made several excellent
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Blog postSo that's Garrote's life in a nutshell. Vietnam vet. Famous author. Decent into madness. But it's what came after his death where Garrote tr
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Blog postIf this is the first you've heard of cult horror author Rex Garrote from me, read this post first, then this one. None of this will make any sense unless you've read the previous posts. For those of you who've been following along with me as I dig into this bizarre mystery, something extremely interesting happened today on Twitter - where nothing interesting ever happens. *wink wink* I was going about my day when I got tagged in this tweet. For clarification, @userbits is me. I've blurred out e
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Blog postI distinctly remembered watching The Goonies when I was a kid and being terrified by the giant octopus scene. Nobody else remembered the gia
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Blog postIf I wanted to have it see the light of day before 2021. Which meant I'd have to start - ugh - the dreaded process of marketing the damn thi
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Blog postWell, things just got a lot weirder. This is an update to last week's post, which you should read here before you go any further. Last week I posted about my experiences with the Mandela Effect/false memory phenomenon, specifically in reference to the apparently obscure horror author Rex Garrote, who may or may not exist. I spoke with many of you about it on social media. Some people thought I was trolling, for obvious reasons - what's another harmless lie to a guy who makes stuff up on a daily
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Blog postI’ve always had a soft spot for Clive Barker's Nightbreed. I am well aware it's not the greatest film in movie history. But it's stuck with me all these years. I first watched it in 1991, after it was released to VHS. By then I'd already read the book it was based on, Cabal, which I'd picked up at my local library. It wasn't my favorite read from Barker, I'll admit. I had already gotten used to his more detailed works like Imajica, The Damnation Game and The Great and Secret Show. Epic works of
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Blog postIf you're just starting out in the indie/small press world, there are lots of things you'll discover by trial and error. Even if you've been at it for a few years or more, it's a constantly shifting landscape that's often difficult to navigate, particularly without the proper tools at your disposal. Trends and platforms change so quickly it's entirely possible this post may be out of date in a few months. This is going to be a long and in-depth post because I want to cover as much of what I cur
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Blog postI'm not much of a conspiracy theorist. I don't think the moon landing was faked, that 9/11 was an inside job, that there are aliens at Roswell, or that Oswald had a partner in crime. But I am very skeptical of, and cynical about, Amazon's marketing services, their mysterious "algorithms," and "cost-per-click" advertising in general. It may be a bit overly ambitious of me to tackle this topic. I've done a fair bit of research but I'm in no way an industry expert. So please tak
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Blog postEveryone who's ever decided writing might be something they want to do for the rest of their lives - or at the very least keep as an intensive hobby - knows the feeling. What should I be writing? What's the book that will get me to the next level in my career and in my "craft"? What's the concept and who are the characters that readers will fall in love with - that I'll fall in love with long enough to let it take up so much of my time and my life? What the f*ck do I do now? Here's how
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Blog postA Look Back at the Many Covers for My Debut Horror Collection, GRISTLE & BONE. Man, Gristle & Bone has had more covers than the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"! Since I self-published it in early-2014, it's had as many covers as years it's been out! So let's go way back and take a look at the earliest cover, with original artwork by my younger brother, Morgan Ralston. Original cover I was pretty happy with this one at the time, and I still have a soft spot for i
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Blog postI've been thinking about this a lot lately as I get asked this question a fair bit, so I thought I'd wade in on the subject. How do you know when it's finished? Be it a screenplay, a short story or a novel - how do you know when the damn thing is done? And not just done, but ready to be kicked out of the house to fend for itself? That is to say, when is your creation ready to be judged by industry professionals and/or readers? What I like to say: "You can just feel it." When you're fin
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Blog postThere's a term I like, coined by author Dean Wesley Smith over on his blog, called "writing into the dark." This means writing without an outline, without an overall plan, without a safety net, and without much by way of process aside from sitting your ass down and pecking away at the damn thing—be it a novel or a short story or a screenplay—until it feels right. Actual video footage of me at my desk. Some writers call it "pantsing it." As in, writing by the seat of your pant
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Blog postThe creative process in gif form. Some people have asked if I have a writing regimen. I've been writing about 10k a week since January. That's good for me. I usually get about 1000 to 1500 words a day (I write slow - editing during so I have less to edit after), except on weekends when I usually take a break to do life stuff. So this is on average 2k per day in a five day work week. It helps that I'm enjoying the stuff I'm writing. I've had a helluva time banging out my latest thriller novella
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Blog postThere sure has been a lot of "advice" swirling around the blogosphere / Twitterverse / #bookstagram / every other made-up internet destination this past week. Most of it has been centered on what is and is not allowable behavior by authors*. And since I like being told what I can't do about as much as wheelchair-bound John Locke (the character, not the philosopher - but probably him too), I've decided to take on the task of breaking down these dos and don'ts. *For the purpose of this p
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Blog postHi. My name is Duncan Ralston and I'm a Constant Reader. To clarify, for those who don't know the term, it means I'm a long-time Stephen King fan. It's a term of endearment he's bestowed upon his readers. To me - and I'm sure to many others, probably even King himself - "Constant Reader" doesn't mean you only read King, nor does it mean you've read every word he's ever written, from the Dark Tower series to The Cannibals, his unpublished 1981 draft of Under the Dome (King completionist
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Blog postIn the fall of 1994, I quit Stephen King cold turkey. Mid-book, I threw up my hands (and the book) in frustration. “That’s it! I’m done with Stephen King!” And I brought the book back to the library unread. Oh sure, I would later gobble up all the movies and “television events” I could get my hands on, like a reformed junkie sneaking back to the old digs for a little taste. I couldn’t miss out on The Stand, The Shawshank Redemption, Storm of the Century, The Green Mile, and Rose Red, not when
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Blog post"I will never do another Goodreads Giveaway again." - Me, in 2014 There are many reasons I said this back then, and those reasons still stand. Now that Amazon has monetized the process, making it even more difficult for indie authors to compete with traditional publishers, I feel it's imperative I warn you away from this before you get duped. These are the supposed benefits of a Goodreads Giveaway, prior to the changes: 1) The entrants of Goodreads Giveaways have to add your book to th
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Blog postWow, this book has been a long time coming! Back in... 2014, I think? I was chatting with friends about all the big-budget genre mashups of classic properties. From Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, it seemed for a while that Hollywood had gone crazy for genre mashups. As a big fan of practically every adaptation of Charles Dickens's timeless classic, A Christmas Carol (especially the one with Alistair Sim, and Blackadder's mixed up version), I wondered what ol
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Blog postEvery time I talk about American Psycho with someone, the same question comes up: "Do you think he really did it?" My answer is invariably, emphatically, "Yes!" It's been a couple of years since I've delved into Bret Easton Ellis's sublimely surreal American Psycho, (abandoning all hope, as the first paragraph states--quoting Dante), but it's one of my all-time favorites. I love every bloody, messy, dense, ugly page of it. I love how deeply Ellis realized the character of ser
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