Ralph Pullins

Why do you write? It’s a simple question right?   I mean, why write?   Why spend the amount of time and energy and resources it takes to do this?   Why subject yourself to judgement and rejection and criticism? Why? I don’t know why I do it.   I don’t know why I spend so much of my time inside my own head, inside my own world, why I lie in bed plotting, hearing conversations, making my characters live in my imagination, why I sometimes can’t concentrate at my pay job because I am lost in my story, why I am distracted when people are talking to me, why I sometimes can’t remember appointments or errands because I’m lost in the flood of words.   I don’t understand why at all.   I just know that I always have.   It is a part of me that I have never been able to excise, have never been able to burn out with various poisons.   Even at my worst, even when I pushed everyone away, the writing has stayed. I have always written, when I was young and fast a...

Why do you write? It’s a simple question right?   I mean, why write?   Why spend the amount of time and energy and resources it takes to do this?   Why subject yourself to judgement and rejection and criticism? Why? I don’t know why I do it.   I don’t know why I spend so much of my time inside my own head, inside my own world, why I lie in bed plotting, hearing conversations, making my characters live in my imagination, why I sometimes can’t concentrate at my pay job because I am lost in my story, why I am distracted when people are talking to me, why I sometimes can’t remember appointments or errands because I’m lost in the flood of words.   I don’t understand why at all.   I just know that I always have.   It is a part of me that I have never been able to excise, have never been able to burn out with various poisons.   Even at my worst, even when I pushed everyone away, the writing has stayed. I have always written, when I was youn...

"Your cage is made of sticks, brother; just kick it apart" Forest Wizard, in"Storytelling," Adventure Time I think it is interesting from what unexpected places our inspiration can be drawn. My new novel, Flagg, was heavily inspired by a game of Call of Cthulhu that I played with a few friends a long time ago.  An image stayed with me all these years, of a man holding two guns: one on an undead creature, and one on a man who was, up to that moment, his friend. For the game, I named the man Jack Flagg, after the Pumpkin King from The Nightmare Before Christmas and the villain from Stephen King's The Stand.  In my novel, I dropped the Jack part, and kept the Flagg part, and made it part of his history that he adopted the name from a novel he had read.  I don't know why this image stayed with me all of these years while most didn't.  It doesn't matter really. It wasn't until years later, after listening to a particularly terrible piece of pop trash ...

"Your cage is made of sticks, brother; just kick it apart" Forest Wizard, in"Storytelling," Adventure Time I think it is interesting from what unexpected places our inspiration can be drawn. My new novel, Flagg, was heavily inspired by a game of Call of Cthulhu that I played with a few friends a long time ago.  An image stayed with me all these years, of a man holding two guns: one on an undead creature, and one on a man who was, up to that moment, his friend. For the game, I named the man Jack Flagg, after the Pumpkin King from The Nightmare Before Christmas and the villain from Stephen King's The Stand.  In my novel, I dropped the Jack part, and kept the Flagg part, and made it part of his history that he adopted the name from a novel he had read.  I don't know why this image stayed with me all of these years while most didn't.  It doesn't matter really. It wasn't until years later, after listening to a particularly terrible piece of pop t...

"Leave, because time only salts your wounds, and grieve the death of your vibrant youth... Stomp out your truth" -The Flatliners, "Brilliant Resistance" The other day, my seven-year-old son said something about getting punched in the face, or wanting to punch someone else in the face, maybe?  I'm not sure; I wasn't really part of the conversation at that point, but the subject came up.  Have you ever been punched in the face?  My niece's boyfriend said he had, only once, on his birthday, when he was in kindergarten.  "Total bullshit" was his verdict about the experience.  I agreed.  Getting hit in the face is, indeed, total bullshit; there's no denying it. Me?  I've been hit in the face plenty of times, by a number of different people.  People I loved, strangers, men and women.  In retrospect, most times I probably deserved it; there are plenty of times I would like to travel back in time and punch myself in the face. What this got me t...

"Leave, because time only salts your wounds, and grieve the death of your vibrant youth... Stomp out your truth" -The Flatliners, "Brilliant Resistance" The other day, my seven-year-old son said something about getting punched in the face, or wanting to punch someone else in the face, maybe?  I'm not sure; I wasn't really part of the conversation at that point, but the subject came up.  Have you ever been punched in the face?  My niece's boyfriend said he had, only once, on his birthday, when he was in kindergarten.  "Total bullshit" was his verdict about the experience.  I agreed.  Getting hit in the face is, indeed, total bullshit; there's no denying it. Me?  I've been hit in the face plenty of times, by a number of different people.  People I loved, strangers, men and women.  In retrospect, most times I probably deserved it; there are plenty of times I would like to travel back in time and punch myself in the face. What this...