Writing Movement, Writers; Big News, Big Move

Writing movement, writers; big news, big move for this guy, but first, let us talk shop.

My weekly writing conversation on writing and my writerly life, as I live it, has been missing the past few weeks, albeit with one caveat: my next published book was announced, ANTS WAKING, (Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! cannot wait for you to hold this one), the cover art revealed, and the release date set for October 28, 2025.

I will elaborate on all of that, but first let us get back to the writing insight and hit on a fun one: writing movement.

It is the true mark of a writer that no matter how many intense, sleepless days of intensive lifting, hauling, traveling – in short, moving – the compulsion to sit down and write is there tonight, as I sit in pain with my single malt, just as it was each of the last few hectic days.

My moving led me to think of writing movement as this week’s topic.

One of those things I have been good at from the very start of my writing career when I started to publish (I do not remember this as part of my work before then, from age 4 – 20, but it very likely had been a part of it, even then) has been writing movement, or action as it is often labeled.

When I say action, I mean the physical moving of your characters in their space.

A fight sequence, car chase, a taxi cab from hell-turned assassination attempt (like in one of my shorts).

I owe this ability, perhaps, to my neurodivergent brain, and certain qualities of autism – for my autism is a gift that enriches me and my art – is that I visualize things with a ferocious intensity and in a similar light, if I see something striking – the way the sun sets, or the crazy passenger-car crash-death scene in the movie Death Proof – it imprints on me deeply and is oft easily recalled to mind, often in such clarity I can recite the dialogue or play-by-play.

So I started to examine what goes on in my head as I write the intense action scenes in my stories that not only rivet the reader, but also give them thrill of the car chase, if you will.

And, as with everything I write, though I may emulate certain works that I love, at times, I strive to make something new and shed light where it has never touched a shadow before.

That said, think of yourself as a director and Tarantino that shit.

I kid, but really, bring on the crazy facets of the action sequence that will not only move the reader in their seat as the motorcycle drifts for a second before roaring down that Hell’s Kitchen alleyway and then BAM striking a dumpster, upending the rider, whose last thought before he dies is it smells like moldy vomit.

I do often picture a chapter as a scene in a film. For some reason it helps me.

The vital parts of writing movement are emphasizing every characters’ observations in that scene.

The biker steps outside and hears the droning murmur of the city that only dissipates when the whine and subsequent bellow of the bike’s engine send a thrill through their body like an electric shock.

Skin is so often overlooked, but the effects of speed and air, and then this increasing wind envelopes a motorcycle, making their occupants skydivers, flying, that there is a Superman feeling that emanates from the lit up pores on your character.

The only thing I know that really compares to riding a motorcycle is riding a mountain bike down an extremely steep slope and hitting somewhere near twenty miles per hour (at least ten, I think, but who the hell knows) without any engine but the rocketing pedals that seem glued to your feet, wearing shorts and a tee-shirt and an open helmet, so that a ton of your skin is in direct contact with the air that you are tearing through the universe with. And part of the similarity has to be the insanely steep and dangerous slope and the daring to defy death, as the adrenaline floods the synapses.

I love bikes.

I see drag race motorcyclists and I think, gods, that has to be another level of fun and feeling, and then I think, I would die. But happy.

Action, writing movement, also comes down to breaking down time into microcosms.

What the hell does that mean?

Well, do you remember bullet time in The Matrix movies (If you did not see them, GO WATCH THEM; you will not be disappointed)?

Think of time slowing, as it tends to do during some of the most dramatic sequences in our lives.

My daughter was two or three and turned away from us and walked right into a pool and submerged.

Terrible of a state as I was in before that moment, I felt time crawl and eons lasted between each nano-second.

It felt as though hours had gone bye when in the span of one breath or one-to-two seconds I went into the pool and grabbed her and held her up and took her out, and she had not had as much as tried to breathe in the pool yet, so she was not spitting up a ton of water (I was lucky).

I could feel my clothes moisten, my cargo shorts grow heavy, pulling, my tee grow uncomfortable.

I was dimly aware of the shock of the cold water, like unexpected thunder, but only in passing.

Most of all, I remember the feel of her as I got to her, and the breath I held as I waited to see if she was okay and could breathe.

So many feelings cross your mind as an action sequence occurs, and this one was a real-life moment for me (fuck, it was scary), it is like dropping a glass that breaks into innumerable shards.

If you are to write movement well, you need to describe, live and re-live, and explore all of your senses and feelings during the time that goes rampaging bye, and then – and this is a tricky part that my great Creative Writing professor and friend and a great poet Ed Stever taught me: emphasize the most important parts to accentuate your story.

What do I mean: well, you describe a gun in immense detail but then the villain does not use it; is that written this way to be a red herring? If not, emphasize the parts of the action scene that are used, that are vital, so that the reader feels their weight in their stomach and winces when your biker slams unexpectedly into the steel dumpster-wall with a deep echo in that filthy alley.

Make a microcosm of each splinter of a second in time.

The Move

As for my big news, well it is two-fold and both cats are out of the bag, actually cats love bags, let us put both cats in the bags but they tear and spill out: I have moved to a new flat in Northern Portugal … and I finally got to revel in the announcement of a new book to be published.

I love Portugal. LOVE IT.

Read the rest of this article (see a lot more pics too) on RJHuneke.com/news here.