It was a first time, as there is a first time for everything: my visit to New York City. I needed to go there to do research for DARK FIBER. I needed to explore Jonathan Kelder’s state of mind when he wanders that city. Jonathan is my protagonist and while he tries to figure a way out, his antagonist weaves a web around him, pulling the net ever tighter. In New York, I put myself in Jonathan’s shoes and hopped on an early ferry to Ellis Island as that seemed the most suitable place to start my journey. It was strangely vacant, Ellis Island, but its emptiness didn’t breathe a single molecule of freedom. My footsteps ricochetted hollowly off the blood-colored floor tiles and…
Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing
Posts from the “Thrillers” Category
These past few months my life seems to revolve around words and chords, around writing and music. It made me rethink the name of my blog and my dear friend Jay unwittingly told me what it should be: Writers Rock. Words come in multiples as I am working on the revision of my thriller Dark Fiber. One day I hit 5,000 words and the next day I don’t even come close to a mere 500. But no matter how many words do find their way from inside my head to my manuscript, music accompanies them all. If I am on a roll, I switch my iTunes controls to repeat and listen to the same song over and over again, until I almost fall in a…
Tagged: Booktunes, Cath Crowley, Dark Fiber, Gorillaz, Jennifer Donnelly, Mina Witteman, Raaf Hekkema, thriller, writing, YA, Young Adult
These days I am writing an average of 3,500 words a day revising my thriller DARK FIBER. It’s hard work, leaving me no time for a social life whatsoever. Luckily that isn’t a problem at all, because my protagonist Jonathan Kelder doesn’t have a social life either, and part of my method of writing is that I like to experience what my protagonists’ go through. If they go out rafting, I go out rafting. If they hike cold and misty mountains in Canada, I hike the same cold and misty mountains. I love doing what my protagonists do. And I think it works. One of the compliments I get from readers is that reading my books make them feel like they are actually joining…
Tagged: Canada, Dark Fiber, hermit, Husum River, Mina Witteman, thriller, Wet Planet Rafting, writing
Today’s a writing day. I can feel it in my bones, I can see it outside. It is the most perfect weather for a writer, here in Amsterdam. Like yesterday – when I did 5,000 words on the revision of my techno thriller Turing’s Deceit, a.k.a. Dark Fiber – autumn races past my window, pushing on every writing fiber in my body. A stiff northern wind brings me sunshine and bright skies one minute, hail and thunderstorms the next. It is as if the Northern gods urge me to write faster and faster, as if they want me and my protagonist to hurry up, and get us to Ragnarök to fight that mythical war against the great serpent. I am wondering whether my protagonist…
Palo Alto is where I took up residence for a couple of weeks, before I head down south to that famous city of angels and stars for a writer’s conference. From the outside it seems a quiet little town, but there is more to Palo Alto than meets the eye. Underneath, Palo Alto is a vibrant city that sucks you right into the country’s techno vortex. It is the home of Stanford University, the alma mater of more than a couple of successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. Yes, graduating from Stanford definitely enhances your life’s expectancy. But as you know life is closely related to death and at Stanford, too, life and death go hand in hand. Stanford’s namesake Leland Stanford Junior died in 1884…
Tagged: Death, Mausoleum, Mina Witteman, palo alto, Silicon Valley, Stanford, Stanford University
It was dead silent at The Farm. No one but me and the omnipresent sun were seen on the Main Quad, that seemed to have freed itself from the usual student mêlée and now oozed an eery quiet. Was it summer recess that had put campus life on hold? I crossed the quad, hoping to find refuge from the sun in the university’s inner sanctuary, but despite Paoletti’s molten silica on the church’s facade displaying Christ’s welcoming of the righteous to the kingdom of God, the bronze doors were uninvitingly shut. It contrasted sharply with the message I got earlier that day, when entering a bric-à-brac not too far from The Farm. At that time life still seemed Californian happy and sunny. Why had…
Tagged: Blood, California, Cardinal, corpse, Mina Witteman, Silicon Valley, Stanford University, The Farm, YA, Young Adult
Mina Witteman 