The Twisted Roads Of Matthew Tonks

About

don't say it's name...

Who is Matthew Tonks?

What an interesting question, one, I know the answer to, intimately, in fact, I am that very man. Hailing from Tasmania, buried deep at the arse end of Australia, people are surprised to find out after reading my stories that I'm a relatively sane forty something year old, happily married, father of one, employed full time and dreams of dark disturbing things that any sane person would never even contemplate thinking of.

But it's all true.

I've toyed with writing for most of my adult life, but have always found the peg a writer must fit into is not the shape I wished to be. My writing can be described as lamenting, long, concussive (yes it smashes you in the head), compulsive, and stuffed with rhythmic dialogue and violence, yes, let’s not forget the violence.

My own opinion on my writing is this.

'You see, I don't just want the words to seep into your mind, but into your soul. Showing you images of blood and beauty through, volatile language, violence, sex, love and sin. My muse takes different shapes, and every now and then you can see her shining her wicked smile in some of my most dastardly stories, tempting you with her promises, but ripping your heart out instead.'

How This Blog Began

It was April of 2016 when I decided I was getting no where in the world of writing, not because I didn't have ideas, not because I didn't believe I was terribly bad at writing, it was, in my eyes, because I didn't have the focus, the ambition, and the tools to do what I needed to do, to get all those ideas in my head down in some sort understandable format.

So I came up with a plan, to challenge myself to three hundred and sixty-five days of creation, giving myself one hour a day to write, and only thirty minutes of editing time afterwards, before I posted the story, sure, there were mistakes that happened, but over time, I got a lot of them sorted, and didn't need to do any BIG changes to any story for the last few months.

It was simple at first, a short story, squeezed from my skull, and sent out into the world. Before the first week was up, another idea took shape, each and every Wednesday was to be called YouChallenge day, where someone out there would throw something at me and I'd have to write a short story based on that idea, oh, what fun that will be.

Then every Thursday and Sunday the page was subjected to pieces of the novel I'd been working on at the time, slowly releasing it piece by piece for what at the time was, I thought, your reading pleasure. I mean, this is how the short stories started in the first place, as a way to exorcise all the little, crazy stories that wouldn't fit anywhere out of my head, over the course of the first few months I realised the work I needed to do on my novel was more extensive than I thought. So I dropped it, instead concentrating on the blog and shorts, thinking, I'd find time eventually to get back on track with the novel.

Now, with the challenge complete, and a full years worth of ideas bashed out onto paper, the real fun stuff begins, the novel, sits in the back-burner still, as new ideas formed from the blog have taken precedent, which, in a way is kinda cool, stick around for the ride, it's going to be fun, I promise.

Matthew Tonks