I Wrote Something!
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.
Kidding aside, I’ve finally found motivation to write. I’ve been plagued with ideas for stories based my Mist world and finally found the means to make it happed – The Magic Spreadsheet. It works similar to something I used several years ago, except now a lot of people can see it and I feel compelled to at least make my minimum word count (250 at the moment).
It works. I’ve written everyday for the last week and a half, so far totally right at 13k words. Good times.
I’m going to keep at it. I’m ready to get back into writing regularly. Even if its only 250 words a day, it beats the 0 I’ve been doing for a while now.
Tools of the Trade
Yesterday morning I started writing a story. I know, a freaking miracle. However, about a page in I realized that this was a fine time to get Scrivener installed and learn how to use it properly. So I download it, install it, and start working through the tutorial. Hours later (spread over the course of a day, finally finishing this morning), I was drowning in way too many features and way too much information. How much writing did I get finished during this time?
Absolutely none.
However, once I completed the tutorial I felt I was ready to start getting into the story. I start a new project and get ready to write. I look in the binder and I am immediately awash in a load of pre-generated text, folders, and sample material. WTF?
How about just starting with the basic structure of a Scrivener project and letting me populate with MY material? I don’t need your sample material, and for a beginner with the program, we may not exactly be comfortable with editing the composition of a template. I know I’m not.
I could take the time to figure out Scrivener, and I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who will quickly deride my post here and tell me I’m a tool bag for bad mouthing such a fine program. I will make it clear here, right now – I’m not putting the program down. I just don’t think it’s the program for me given the time I have (or lack thereof).
And I’m still not getting any writing done.
Of course, I’m writing this right now, so I guess there’s that. 🙂
So I shut the damn thing down, reopened my original document from yesterday (in Open Office Writer, a fine program with very little screen clutter to get in the way), and get back to work.
Keep It Simple, Stupid.
I know a lot of writers out there swear by Scrivener. But then again, there are a lot of products out there that writers use daily that they feel is the best thing since the invention of paper. There are a lot of tools out there for writers to get their ideas onto a page. Many are just there to catch the writer and to get them to fork over decent money for something that, at the end of the day, is just an over-glorified word processor.
Seen the commercial on TV for Dragon Naturally Speaking? Where they try to convince you that writers can benefit from the program? The “writer” they use for the commercial is rather lackluster in writing skill. Maybe she’s just a bit melancholy…
So far I’ve managed to write, edit, format, and submit all of my stories using Open Office and Microsoft Office. Those are my tools. I may occasionally feed a manuscript to an analyzer to see if I’m using certain words too often, but really, I don’t need much else.
Some writers may still find my needs too much. Those folks write longhand, with a pen and a piece of paper. *shudder*
Let me get back to my story. It’s not going to write itself. Wait, I bet there’s a writer’s tool out there for that, too…
The Submissions Grinder
Listed over there on the left is probably one of the best sites I’ve ever found on the internet that helped the writer. It’s Duotrope’s Digest. It was a fantastic resource as it listed tons and tons of markets for writers, helping them find a home for that story about the hermaphroditic Sasquatch that no one else wants. They were free and their data was extremely useful. They took donations on a “pay as you like” basis. I donated the proceeds from several stories, because, well, they helped me get stories into home.
Well, starting on 2013, they now charge a fee. A pretty steep fee, too. $50 a year, or you can pay $5 a month. You can imagine the outcry from people who merely felt they were entitled to free stuff and now they would have to pay for it. After that storm blew over, the real users of the site came out and started bringing out the real facts – the stats will now suffer because only those that pay for the service will now log their stats. Very true. Also, usually writers don’t have a lot of disposable cash to pay for something like that. I know I have $50 to spend on it, but I have other things that I need more than a subscription to a site that I can use a spreadsheet and Writer’s Market from Barnes & Noble.
I won’t get into the good or bad of Duotrope going to a pay model. I don’t care, as I will not pay for that and if you want to, please, do so.
Enter the awesome David Steffen from Diabolical Plots.
I won’t go on about this, but I will direct you to the article, and information about their attempt to create a (free) replacement for Duotrope – The Submission Grinder.
Good Start to 2013…
I received an email this morning informing me that I had been paid for my story “Terminal,” and that the anthology containing it, Dark Stars, was out on Amazon today. I happily took my hard earned loot and headed over to Amazon to check it out.
You should too, just click on the picture…
Hmmm. My name seems to be missing a letter on the cover. How vexing. However, it’s spelled correctly inside the book at the story as well as in the author bio at the end. It’s also spelled correctly on the Amazon listing. *shrug* Irritating, but nothing to get too worked up over.
And no, I didn’t see the cover before release.
Anyway, it’s only $3 for your Kindle, so why not? 🙂
2013
So long 2012.
I can’t complain too much. I have a good job and a wonderful family. In these times, these are the thing everyone wants. I don’t need piles of cash or a fancy car (though it would be nice!).
But, I miss something dearly – writing.
I spent all of 2012 working my butt off. I have a job that is demanding and stressful, but yet at the same time I find it to be very satisfying and fulfilling. Not many people can say that. However, it has taken up all of my time that isn’t filled with my family. My free time is relegated to time in front of the TV after my son has gone to bed. Lately it has been spent playing Rocksmith or in the last week, Assassin’s Creed III.
The urge to write is there, though. And lately, it has been making it’s presence felt.
I have a document with story ideas in it. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve added about three pages to it. Each idea is anywhere between a sentence and a paragraph, but enough to help me work with it. The real key to that document isn’t the individual story ideas. It’s the possibility that those ideas can be combined into a totally off the wall idea that will make an awesome story. I have read many times in the past that writer’s best ideas didn’t come from the idea they had in the middle of the night, but rather when they merged it with an idea they came up with two years previous.
But I’m out of practice. And I hope that 2013 will allow me to get back into things. So, I have decided that there are some things I need to do to make that happen –
- Eliminate as many sources of negativity as I can. That includes cutting back my own innate negativity. I’m a pessimist, despite my best efforts to be otherwise.
- Manage my stress with exercise. My stress isn’t intolerable, but I feel it does limit my desire to do things and holds me back. So, I will make an honest effort to exercise and get my stress manageable. Oh yeah, it will make me healthier, too. 🙂
- Eat better. This goes in with the exercise. I really need to stop plowing through a Zaxby’s Nibblerz Meal with fries and a Diet Coke. I know, the diet drink makes it healthy, but it can’t do it all on its own. (I’ve always joked that I can eat whatever I want as long as I had a diet drink with it, as that made it healthy)
- Read more.
So, if I can accomplish these things, I can get back into the writing mindset. The words are there, and as my friend Dario likes to say, they will come in time. I feel I need to help them along if I ever want them to come forth.
And these aren’t resolutions, as I feel people make them with full intentions of breaking them. I’m merely setting goals, that I can meet at any time, be it in 2013 or beyond.
How things change
About a month ago, I pulled Mist out of the office and started reading it. In case you don’t know, Mist is the novel I wrote a few years back. So large I broke it into three parts, because each item by itself would be the length of a novel. Well, I was ready to get to work on it. I think I read about two chapters in it (and damn, they need some work). Then, something else stepped in my path.
As you know, I’m the Assistant Managing Editor at Tangent Online, a fairly large and well known short fiction review site. I haven’t done much with the position since earning it last year, aside from maintaining it’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. Well, the Managing Editor ran into a rough patch, and needed me to take over for a while. So I’ve been learning that, in addition to various other personal life items that just kept me busy in the evenings.
Swallowing your time (and your soul) since 1996
Oh yeah, there’s also Diablo 3, but that’s another story.
Anyway, I’ve nearly gotten my hands around this editor thing, which is pretty demanding work when I have work to do. I have a new appreciation for what solo editors have to do to keep things floating, I can say that for certain!
So I just keep on moving. I haven’t written much in well over a year, aside from some gaming material for personal use. I have a lot of ideas flowing and lately the itch to sit down and write something has started to grow. I think here in a few months, once I get past a few other hurdles, I will be ready to get back into the writing game. At the moment, I have noting even to send out to publishers, and I really need to correct that! I have a ton of finished stories.
Well, finished as in the first draft is done. Which means I have about 6 or 7 more revisions of each one before they are ready for sending out to people for consideration.
Mist looms, as well. It’s time to get it right, and get it out into the world. I just need to get this next review posted to Tangent…
Brain Dead!
That’s about how I feel these days. I have a job that is pretty mentally demanding during the day, so when I get home in the evenings, my brain just wants to shutdown and turn into a vegetable. So I wind up sitting in a chair with my laptop and playing a game, or watching TV. Not much writing happens these days, and reading even has taken a backseat. Sure, I’m getting some reading done, but it isn’t in the same quantity as before.
So how do you get out of that rut? Well, in my case I just need to settle into the job and once I have a grip on it, things will improve. It’s been about a year since I seriously wrote something that wasn’t a review or a blog entry, and it was almost a year ago that I got the job that got me to where I am now. I’ve been in my current position for 4 months, now, and I think I’ve a grip on things, so everyday I feel a little better when I get home. I’m also eating better (sort of) and shooting to improve my health (need to lose some weight and get off my ass and ride my bike more). And, with the very early arrival of spring, I find my own mood lifting.
Which is why when two weeks ago a story idea just came to mind and I grabbed it and let it churn in my head, I was pleased when I found myself still pondering it several days later. I’ve warped and altered the story, making it more sinister, then backing down and making it more preachy. And so on. I finally wrote my idea into my Ideas document and made some notes in my Moleskine. More than I’ve done in a while. That makes me happy, because I’m starting to get back to where I was several years ago when I started this journey of becoming published.
I’m still sticking to my pursuit of quality and my desire to only be published by the best out there. I could just toss my stories to the lesser markets right out of the gate to get that quick “I got published!” feeling, but I’m in no rush at all. I’m still going to be an insatiable perfectionist with my stories, only turning one loose when I’m sure that its worth being read and when I am (mostly) satisfied that it’s the best it can be.
So I may have been down, but I’m not out. I’m still reviewing books (Bull Spec #7 should hopefully be out soon). I’m still the Assistant Managing Editor at Tangent (I also maintain the site’s Facebook and Twitter presence). I’m just also a very busy service desk supervisor that needs to let things balance out. All things in due time. There’s no rush. 🙂
And “Karma” gets a home…
Looks like Short Story Me liked “Karma” enough to select it for publication! Nice to see that someone there could be bothered to, you know, read it and all that. I’m very pleased that this piece finally found a home, so many years after it was initially written.
However, this puts me in a bind. I’ve always had a couple stories floating around in various places. Well, with the sale of “Karma,” I have nothing else left to send out. I have a lot of stuff written, but nothing is ready to send out! So I guess its time to bust out some of these stories I’ve had sitting around and actually edit them and get them ready for mass consumption!
You’ve got to be kidding me…
Many years ago, while in a quiet moment at the computer shop in which I worked, a story idea popped into my head. I belted it out, and in about thirty minutes had a 1000 word story called “Karma.” It’s a fantasy story, about an undead assassin who gets what’s coming to him. I was proud of it, enough that when I seriously started pursuing the glorious life of a writer, I pulled it out and edited it into the 950 word powerhouse that it is now.
Now, it’s made the rounds. A couple of high end publications had narrow fields which included it, but eventually it was cut. Which tells me its good. Damn good. Just not quite good enough. But, after even more revision, it is about all it can be at my current level of skill. I’m okay with that, and its still making the circuit.
This morning, though, I received a rejection that just blew my mind. I won’t say who it is from, as that isn’t really necessary. It’s bad enough I had to bitch about here.
Here it is, in its entirety (names changed to protect the… err… innocent?)…
We can’t use your story at this time. We hope you have some luck placing it with another market. See below for editor notes. Please submit more fiction.
Your submission of “Karma” was reviewed by John Q Editor.
The thing is, I didn’t read all of it, but it quickly became a vision of the afterlife, and we’re really not interested in stories that are a glimpse of the afterlife. Granted, all writers must write these stories, and obviously some do get published (Sixth Sense), but it’s not right for our magazine.
Now the form part at the start of this rejection is fairly normal. “We don’t want it, good luck placing this junk with someone else. Oh yeah, send us more of your junk.” Every writer sees them. I’ve learned to ignore that part of the message. It’s a rejection, and for whatever reason (however nebulous), they didn’t want it for their publication.
For most rejections, that is all you get. A simple “Thanks but no thanks.” Sometimes you get lucky and the reader provides something further. It’s usually a reason why they won’t take it (didn’t like the character, the story was too drawn out, too much exposition, etc.) and maybe something constructive like “delete pages 5-9 and you will have a good story.”
The part that blew me away on this rejection was the feedback. Bear in mind, this story is 950 words. 950 words is a fast read. Double spaced, its a 3 page Word document. We’re not talking about a time commitment, on any level. So yeah, the reader above chose not to read it, and on top of it all, quickly proved that he didn’t by assuming what the story is about. Also, he brought up the movie Sixth Sense to prove his point.
What? Unless the Sixth Sense he’s talking about features an undead assassin who serves a mysterious master who loves a dose of Karma and Irony, then I’m not sure what he’s talking about.
The editor/slush reader is well within their rights to not read something, that is fine and dandy. But to call attention to the fact by proving you didn’t even finish reading the first 100 words, well, that’s unprofessional and not very intelligent. Had he just said that he didn’t finish reading it as it felt like something he wasn’t interested in, then I wouldn’t be here writing this. Now would I?
I also fully respect that the reader felt it wasn’t right for their publication. I wouldn’t expect a publication that takes vampire robot stories to accept a werewolf hooker story. But make the rejection a little more friendly. Come on, you’re making a struggling writer a little sad that their story wasn’t up to snuff. To be rude and say “Hey, I didn’t read your steaming pile of excrement because it is a werewolf hooker story and we only take vampire robot stories,” when had you read further than 20 words in you would have seen it was a werewolf hooker who teams up with the main character, who just so happens to be a vampire robot. Well, that’s just bad form.
You know what, give me a form rejection. At least that way I don’t know you didn’t take it because you don’t like how I had the letter T in the character’s last name.
Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
Farewell 2011
I can’t complain too much about the year. Within the borders of 2011, I was unemployed, found a good contract job, which resulted in my being brought on full time for an even better job. I also sold four stories, one to Ray Gun Revival and another to an anthology. I do regret that I didn’t get a lot of writing done between April and December. However, adjusting to a job can be taxing and then having to learn another one months later is even more taxing.
I seem to remember making goals last year around this time…
Yeah, I’m not going to get into it here. The year didn’t work out like it should have along those lines, but it still worked out well. Now that my employment situation is leveling out, I’m hoping I can get more writing in starting soon. I have ideas, just need the will to sit down and get it done.
I really need to do something. After all, I only have one story left on the market, and I hope to move it along soon. So I need to get on some of these stories sitting around collecting dust.
Anyway, everyone have a safe and happy New Year. See you in 2012, and while I’m not going to set goals for myself, I’m nonetheless going to make sure I do better than I did this year. Which, all things being equal, wasn’t too damn bad.
Fear not!
Yeah, this little bastard in the red robe.
I just finished reading The Goblin Corps by Ari Marmell, which reminded me greatly of D&D. Of course, as I started to ruminate about a title for this post and I realized it had been a while since I last posted, I knew that some people may wonder where I ran off to. So yeah, “Fear not!” came to mind, and then this little bastard in the red robe.
I’ve had a LOT of dice hurled at me over the years by speaking like him at the gaming table.
But I am still here. Writing book reviews (look for my review of The Goblin Corps soon), maintaining the Tangent Online Facebook page, and struggling to work on my own writing. (Speaking of Tangent, I was rather shocked to see my name actually shown at this place.)
Like many writers, I have to hold down a full time job so I can have things like clothes, food, a roof over my head, and internet access so I can piss away time that I should be using to write. However, my new job involved me learning a LOT of new stuff, and I’m learning more every day, so on some days I get home and my brain just wants to veg out and let the TV control my brain. I may play Dragon Age or maybe Bayonetta.
But the only writing stuff I did was, well, nothing.
Well, no more!
Tonight I successfully finished my redpenning of “The Eyes Have It,” and soon I will start to commit those changes to the story. I also have an itch to write a story idea that came to me watching the first episode of the anime Angel Beats. I have a lot of stuff to work on here, and I am ready to do it!
I just need to finish this quest on Dragon Age first, though.
So yeah, fear not because I’m still here and doing my damnedest to get back into the flow of writing and editing. It’s been long enough!
Fortunately for the rest of you, I’m not vain enough to go edit my Wikipedia page into existence. 🙂
Time for a Shift…
I have reviewed a lot of stuff over the last couple of weeks. A book review for print and several magazines (and half an anthology) for online publication. I’ve read a lot of good stories and a lot of bad stories. I find inspiration in a lot of them. Elements that worked well. Elements that didn’t. As a reviewer, I have to critically look at these works and find the flaws as well as the shiny spots that make the entire story. In the end, I find a lot of good material to inspire my own writing.
Having been misunderstood by many people out there who read my last blog entry, I feel it necessary to clear this up for those people that cannot seem to understand what I was getting at.
YOU CAN WRITE A REVIEW THAT SHOWS A BOOK/STORY IN A NEGATIVE LIGHT.
I know. I’ve done it. Read my reviews of Boneshaker, The Falling Machine, and several short stories that I’ve read over the last year. No where did I ever say that you couldn’t write a bad review of a book or story. But, a well written, BALANCED review cannot focus completely on the rust and dents. You have to also let the person reading your review know that there are some good elements in there. My point before, which had me called a dickwad on one place on the internet by someone that obviously missed it, was that you cannot write a serious review and have it completely decimate a work unless it has no redeeming qualities. On the same coin, you cannot write a review that is just overly gushing over a book, either. Both methods wind up with you, the reviewer, looking like a fanboy or an idiot.
Now, if there was nothing good about the story and you have to come out with guns blazing, telling the world that the writer is a hack and shouldn’t be published, do so. Just use some tact and think about who will be reading it. Your name is attached to it, after all.
Okay, I’m done with that. I will reiterate something from my last post that sums up another point I am trying to make here, and the comment I mentioned above was a prime example of it…
“Because you never know who might actually be paying attention.”
Anyway…
Now that I have all those reviews behind me, and I’m on a short hiatus from Bull Spec (he almost has the next issue full, and there isn’t anything coming up that I want to read for review), I’m going to start writing more fiction. You know, that stuff I really want to write. I have a lot of story ideas, and someone forwarded me a link to an anthology of Steampunk Horror, and I have two stories to clean up to send to them. One is called “The Eyes Have It,” which features a scene that was one of my favorite to write (a guy digging out his own eyes with a sharpened silver spoon), and the other needs a new title and a serious rewrite, but it’s currently called “Brass Spiders.”
So yeah, I’m shifting gears and moving back to the writing. In a month or two I will also be starting an online workshop that I hope will also propel me forward.
Review Writing
Anyone that knows me well enough knows that I am very opinionated and will verbally tell anyone that will listen what I think is wrong with something. This usually results in some funny comments as I run on about how such-and-such item is junk or how awesome something is that no one cares about. This naturally evolved into me writing reviews of the music I listened to, along with the occasional movie. These reviews were not the best constructed in the world, and they could be very amusing.
About a year or so ago I was given an opportunity to have one of my book reviews actually published. You know, on paper with ink along with other pages with ink and bound together into a magazine. I thought it was awesome, but let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to get there.
Since I’m an aspiring writer, I seek to become part of a community of people that thrives heavily on the relationships that form. Editors and writers and publishers cross paths at some point, whether it just be through email or through an in person meeting at the Nebula Awards. But you can be rest assured that they all read one thing – reviews. The author wants to know how their work was received, the editor how their author is faring, and the publisher need to know if printing further works from their author is worth their time and attention. Careers can be made or broken by reviews.
A well written review will explore the positive and negatives in a story. It will be balanced and show how the good and the bad weigh in evenly and make a complete story. The review will also explore how the story fits into the existing genre, how it changes the rules or how it blends in perfectly, becoming one with its genre. But most of all, the review will NOT do harm to the story or the author.
I don’t care how much I read or learn, I may not always understand what an author intended in a story. Does that make the story inferior? No, it doesn’t. Unless, of course, the story is so dreadfully written that it makes no sense at all. Even then, you don’t go off on it. You just say “Perhaps I’m not the target audience for this story.” You get the point.
Reviewing a story based on spelling errors and grammar mistakes is amateurish. Unless, of course, you’re reading a book that is filled with grammar and spelling problems enough that it destroys your ability to read it. Most reviewers are working with Advance Reader Copies (aka ARCs) that are filled with spelling errors, grammar mistakes, and in some cases, entire pages missing, so in those cases we cannot even mention it because its not the finished work. The ARC for Andrew Mayer’s The Falling Machine was page after page of bad spelling, incorrect words, and jumbled up grammar. But I couldn’t judge it on that, since it wasn’t the official release (which, by the way, is much better).
Blowing something out of the water merely because you don’t like the formatting of the pages is also not the reviewers job, unless it also detracts from your ability to read it. Once again, chances are good you have an ARC, so what you have and what may be on the shelf upon release may be two different things.
In all my reviewing, I’ve read some really bad stuff. Many times I had to force myself to finish the story so I could write an honest review. You can’t review something you’ve only read half of. Some of those awful stories actually turned out better at the end, too. It’s considered unprofessional to half-read a story and then review it, and worse, comment on a public forum about the problems with the story when you haven’t even read it all the way through. Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind only came together at the end of the book, so if you only read half of it, of course you would think the story is weak.
Now, if all you want to do is review stories and have them posted to websites and the like, then do what you want. However, if you want to pursue a writing career, and you are using reviewing as a springboard to get your name exposure, then you need to be politic. If you write destructive reviews for years, and then one day decide to try to get a book of your own published, think about what might happen. The editor may see your name and think “Oh, I know who this jackass is,” and just issue a rejection notice without even a look at your manuscript. An author who may have liked your work and would help you promote it may remember you bad mouthing their book and look the other way.
Relationships.
Remember, doctors are to do no harm.
Likeeise, reviewers should do no harm.
Because you never know who might actually be paying attention.
Update to “To Query or Not to Query…”
After getting some advice from a fellow writer (and fellow North Carolinian) I went on and sent a query to the publication in question. I got a reply pretty quickly, too. Seems the story had indeed dropped through the cracks and never made it into the slush pile/submissions queue, despite a confirmation email. A few emails later and the story is back into their queue for consideration.
Still Alive
And kicking, too. 🙂
The last six weeks have been hectic. Aside from having to go back to a full time job after spending 4 months without a job, there is the steep learning curve I have to climb in order to learn how to do my new job. While I had an extensive background in phone system work and the stuff that goes with it, I haven’t worked with one with this level of complexity or size. When I am done at the end of the day, all my poor beleaguered brain wants to do it shut down and play mindless games like Ninja Gaiden II or Batman: Arkham Asylum.
This has resulted in several negative side effects.
- My reading has taken a hit. Which is really bad, because I have a review assignment for Bull Spec, and I have to read the book that came before it so I can review it properly.
- I don’t want to sit and write. My brain is just plain tired at the point in the day where I could sit and do it. I haven’t even had many story ideas come to me over the last 6 weeks.
- I don’t want to sit and edit. I have stories written that need polishing, but the energy needed to do that just isn’t there.
I know this is a temporary thing, and as I progress into my new job I will find a level surface on the learning curve and my brain will get back into the swing of things. I’ve already seen my reading pick up, and just today I managed to get another draft of “Don’t Shoot the Messenger” put together.
Of course, I don’t have a printer at the moment, so printing it off for red pen action isn’t possible.
I give it another month, tops, before I’m ready to take on the task of writing something. I have some new ideas forming, but nothing solid at the moment. I also have a lot of older ideas that need attention. Maybe I can start there and see where it takes me?
Until next time.
New Employment II
So I go and get a real job again, finally. Then, a week into that, I’m offered another job. Not a paying job in my field, but a non-paying job with an online magazine. I accepted a non-paying position with Tangent Online as the Assistant Managing Editor. So, what does this mean? In the immortal words of Dark Helmet…
- Absolutely Nothing!
But, its a cool gig and I think while I will never have a lot of work to do, I still maintain the Facebook page for the site and update it when we have new reviews. I just have a cool title to go along with it.
New Employment
My reign on the throne of unemployment ended this week as I returned to a full time job with full time pay and all that fun stuff. The two weeks leading up to this blessed event involved a drive to another town to verify my I9 information, a drug screening, and waiting for a background check to clear. After all this, and some waffling on the start date, I found myself gainfully employed in a contract position for a rather large banking organization. Sadly, this all means that my writing has been put on temporary hold as I figure out where it all fits in the grand scheme of things.
This does not, however, stop me from submitting the stuff I have, and working on editing the stuff I already have finished. 🙂
Anyway, if this results in a reduction in my blog posting, fear not, I am here and working, just the writing life needs to take a lesser role for a little while as I get my working life back in order.
Oh yeah, “Lifestealer” went up at Ray Gun Revival last week. If you haven’t seen it yet, head over there and check it out.
Steampunk Joe
Many years ago, while reading about Cyberpunk, I happened upon another sub-genre of science fiction called Steampunk. I found myself a bit surprised that I had already encountered it quite a bit in my movie and book consumption. As I read more and more on the subject, I found my imagination working overtime, things fitting right into place in my warped brain. Story ideas started coming to me, and soon I had full blown adventures for dashing heroes wearing brass goggles and wielding strange but familiar weapons that shot lightning bolts and aether gases.
It was from this miasma of ideas that my love of writing returned. I had always been a storyteller, and I’ve been wanting to be a published writer for longer than that, but with Steampunk I found a place I felt comfortable and could produce a lot of writing. Strangely enough, more of my recent stories have been regular science-fiction, but I have a lot of Steampunk ideas brewing. I don’t want to be pegged as being one type of writer, but I do want to make my mark somewhere.
It was my love of Steampunk that managed to get me my first ever item published – a book review of Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker. My first ever published story, “The Duel,” is a Steampunk story.
So last week I received an email that put my ass in gear and had me scrambling for the goods that could allow me to have a new author headshot made. This time, wearing more stylish duds that fit in with my favorite sub-genre in speculative fiction. After combing town I located a bowler (or a derby, for those who insist on the American name).
But the search for cool stuff didn’t stop there. While combing the antique and vintage shops for hats, I also looked for shirts and other things that would fit. I couldn’t find much, and finally decided that hunt would have to wait for a better day when I had more money to play with (i.e. never LOL). I was bound and determined to find something other than just a hat.
For a few bucks, I managed to secure some green welding goggles. Ugly things, and didn’t look right at all. However, a quick stop at Lowes provided me with a can of brass spray paint. A few hours of work and a can of paint can change a lot about a pair of goggles.
Once that was all done, I just needed to get the pictures made and get them off to editors and websites. If you saw the last picture I had on display, it was of me wearing a Real Deal Brazil tarp hat, taken by my good friend Nikki Midgette. We both worked there at the time and being an employee, it made me an instant choice for photos to put on their website (you know, because they wouldn’t have to pay me :)). That picture is at least 3-4 years old at this point (I think, memory is fuzzy), so it was time for a more modern shot.
So, finding Nikki (both of us being unemployed meant neither of us had anything better to do), we headed out to a local park where I could get shots in nature without interference with modern technology. We also then drove out to the country to locate a run down barn to get some more photos. What resulted were some awesome shots, one of which you can see over on the About page. Good stuff. I also updated my bio over there, mainly because, well, I could, and I wanted it to fit my picture.
So, keep your eyes peeled for Bull Spec #5, and you may find me and my picture in there. You may also find a familiar title on one of the sections…
In other news, Indigo Rising put my story “Harvest Moon” (originally published on their website back in January) into issue X of their print edition. You can pick up a copy for $5 from their website, if you wish. It’s worth it, I think.
The Clockwork Pen 