Category Archives: Misadventures in Fiction

Failure and rejection aren’t always that bad

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction, Misadventures in Non-Fiction

Oh, hey. A second post today, and it’s not even Christmas. Conversely, I think this is a topic I’ve touched on in the past. It just won’t stop nagging me, so I wanted to give it some time anyway. It ties in with the earlier post, which you should definitely check out if you’ve not seen it. Possibly one of my best ones yet.

Before I dreamed of becoming a published writer, but after wanting to become a mad scientist and take over the world (yes, that was a thing that actually happened), I wanted to be an actor. That’s a bit of an understatement. I dreamed of being the next go-to actor for all of the best, most terrifying villains. Surprise. I wanted to play the role of the evil guy for a living, which was a step down from actually taking over the world and being a proper evil genius.

However, I had no idea where to start. How would I become the next big villain in the next big movie? Who would I have to contact to make this happen? I knew there would have to be a lot of blood, sweat, and tears shed, but I felt like had the necessary potential to make this dream a reality. Continue reading →

One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day 42

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction, One Hundred Days of Blogging

I’m starting my morning off by enjoying a bowl of cereal while I read through the Spam comments that Phil’s Misadventures in Fiction has accrued recently. It’s oddly entertaining, although the spammers certainly do have nice things to say about my posts. Even if some of those kind words don’t really make a lot of sense from a grammatical standpoint.

Speaking of kind words: the professor I sent Joshua Harkin and the Wicked Nightmare King off to got back to me with his critique today. It’s not something I feel should be shared in its entirety on here, but I do have to say seeing the phrases “I thoroughly enjoyed it” and “you have great characters” really put a stupid grin on my face.

Meowiarty is hanging out with me while I type this, as he sat at my bedroom door and meowed until I let him in. He may be a touch spoiled, I’m willing to concede, but he behaves like a dog enough and I miss having dogs around…so by that reasoning it should be okay that he’s in here. Probably. I’ll remind myself of that when I’m cleaning cat hair out of my PC’s tower.

Naturally, today’s post will involve 42 in a way. Hopefully not too predictable a way, but we’ll see. Continue reading →

Fantastic News

Posted on by under Joshua's Nightmare Updates, Misadventures in Fiction

I had another post planned for tonight, which would argue the validity of fanfiction and so on. I’m sorry, but that’s getting postponed.

Just this once, however, I can say it’s not because of laziness. I’m excited to say I have tremendous, fantastic news. I checked my e-mail, and I honestly can’t remember why, and found this waiting for me.

Hi Phil,
You are the winner of our book publishing contest on Facebook. When you get a chance, please email us your manuscript so we can get started on publishing your book!
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Alexandria White
Collaborative Publishing Manager
CaryPress
~ Your Books in Your Fans’ Hands and Hearts
Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap. How do I even react?! I e-mailed them some questions, of course, but now I’m just freaking out. I’m excited, and a little anxious.
The manuscript I’m sending? Joshua Harkin and the Wicked Nightmare King, of course! Mention of it being a two-book series hasn’t come up yet, but hopefully that can be another thing that happens down the road. For now, I’m just ridiculously excited, kind of terrified, and eager to set some even loftier goals for myself. Holy shit, people.
I will probably be completely intolerable for at least the next forever.

This Week in Misadventures – A Self-Intervention

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction, Misadventures in Non-Fiction

Oh, hey. It’s Sunday, which normally means it’s time for me to stumble through all of the writing, reading, and other nutty antics I’ve gotten into throughout the past week, highlighting both victories and failures alike. I enjoy those posts, because they were a start to me making sure I was regular (toilet humor goes here) with posting to Misadventures In Fiction while also making sure I kept up with my writing, reading, and…miscellaneous antics? Whatever. Continue reading →

A Remarkable Victory

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This is an exciting moment for me, though I suspect that goes without saying. All of my typical thought processes are trying to cheapen this victory, and so I’m trying my damnedest to shut them up.

I submitted two short stories–“Death at Teatime” and “Rebooting Everything”–to Remarkable Doorways. And then I waited. I sent a story off to another publication, and then focused on other things so as to not go mad.

And then I got an e-mail containing words I wasn’t familiar with from my previous misadventures in attempted publishing – that one of my stories had been accepted (spoilers: it wasn’t “Death at Teatime”). I reread it a couple times, just to make sure I hadn’t confused a couple words. Or had been hallucinating.

“Rebooting Everything” can be found here, as part of their very first issue.

More importantly, Remarkable Doorways is always looking for submissions. Their submission page spells out the important details better than I can, so meander on over there, and then send something remarkable.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be lost in a state of excited disbelief for the next week or so.

PS: Let it be known I didn’t fail to realize this and my last post were my 150th and 151st posts, respectively, and that I should’ve posted something about Pokemon. I’m going to honor that with a belated something or other. Unless I forget, which is entirely plausible.

Old stories, new stories, and Saturday miscellany

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction

Or “I’m pretty sure the only thing I’m accomplishing outside of work this weekend is licking windows, and I’m not entirely thrilled with that”.

Holiday weekends always leave me a bit catawampus. Friday seemed liked Saturday, and today seemed like Sunday, so I’ll probably wake up early tomorrow, very afraid I’ve missed the weekly conference call at work. I’m probably kidding.

Today was filled with unexpected episodes of nostalgia, which is the worst kind of nostalgia. It inflicted memories on me that I was happy to revisit, and some I could’ve done without spending time focusing on. Enough about that, though.

This isn’t a post about today’s weirdness so much as it is a post about tomorrow’s hopeful productivity. That’s the exciting stuff, I hope. The plan is to get up relatively early, which is easy enough since I’m no longer able to sleep past 8a.m. anyway, and get as much writing done as possible. I can’t think up a sufficiently clever name for it, so Sunday Marathon Writing Bonanza-Thing. It’ll be a little of the old, a little of the new, and enough writing to make my fingers bleed. Two stories that helped inspire my post on my story mortality rate. A story inspired by The Bloggess’ Fourth of July tweets. A story idea that happened at work or while I was celebrating yesterday or at some point other than those. I’m a master of Fuzzy Thinking today, with some particularly impressive Mush-Brain attributes. Maybe a new Warpt Factor, unless all of my fingers have fallen off by that point.

I’m beta-testing the pilot episode for Phil’s Misadventures in Podcasting before, you know, recording an actual first episode. Not before figuring out how to convert and upload the pilot, of course. So that should be its own misadventure in dumbassery.

There’s also some exciting news for This Week in Misadventures. I guess I could just say how the news is about [redacted] and [withheld], but not without forgetting [spoilers].

I’m so goddamn funny.

That’s all for tomorrow. Tonight’s for recovering, Adventure Time, and remembering what day it is, because I still keep thinking it’s Sunday. In about an hour, that’ll be right…so hooray for small victories. I hope you all, dear readers, enjoyed a pleasant Fourth of July with your bald eagles, burgers wrapped in steak, and your assault rifles that launch fireworks, and avoided the standard Fifth of July Hangover. See you lovely folks tomorrow for the standard weekly recap.

 

Introducing the impending

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction

This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, given my tendency to leap into trying new things with all of the preparation and thoughtfulness of a man on fire who happened to spot a nearby lake. I’m very excited to announce I’m actually going to take a crack at starting my own podcast.

By that I mean I’ve recorded the pilot episode of Phil’s Misadventures in Podcasting, and now it needs attention in the form of editing. Once that happens, I need to either create (oh god, no) or obtain cover art, figure out how to actually disperse it for the enjoyment or suffering of others…and that should do it.

If you enjoy the snark I produce here, in written words, then I think it’s a safe bet to say you’ll also enjoy my upcoming podcast. Hopefully, once I get the ball rolling on it I’ll be able to bribe, coerce, or blackmail people into being guests, and I assume my editing skills will only improve with time.

Most importantly, what manner of shenanigans would you folks want from such a podcast?

My ideas, and their woefully high mortality rate

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At any given time, there’s probably about a dozen too many ideas rattling around in the vast weirdness of my thoughts. This can make keeping track of everything a bit difficult, though I say this as someone who also owns a good number of notebooks that are far more devoid of any writing than they should be. As I mentioned earlier in the week, I’m now working on the first draft of yet another novel idea, which arrives and leaves the forefront of my thoughts at its leisure. There are Warpt Factor plotlines bouncing off of one another like they’re all locked up in a particularly potent bouncy castle. Many short stories. Posts for Screen Robot. You get the idea. Continue reading →

Misadventures in Podcasting?!

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction

Or “I meant to include this in my This Week in Misadventures post, but I’m forgetful and was tired, so I forgot” with hints of “This is a title for a thing that will probably never happen”.

This is an idea that, at some point or another, materialized in my brain. It started as a whisper. Hey. Podcasts are neat. You like doing neat things. Huh? Why not? I jokingly suggested this possibility on Twitter and Facebook, where a few people made the terrible decision of encouraging such an idea. By that I mean they said I should do a podcast while very drunk.

Not helpful, people. Not even a little.

Here’s what I do know about podcasts: they’re available on iTunes, they can be free, and a lot of people make really entertaining ones (Hey there, Welcome to Nightvale).

I don’t know what I’d talk about, who I’d talk with, or even how I’d go about a podcast.

That all aside, I like the sound of Misadventures in Podcasting because, I mean, it goes with my Misadventures in everything else.

Thoughts?

Why misadventures in fiction?

Posted on by under Misadventures in Fiction, Misadventures in Non-Fiction

Once upon a time, not particularly long ago in the bigger scheme of things, I started a WordPress blog named Phil’s Misadventures in Fiction. It happened because I had an idea for a story, which would eventually (still very tentatively) end up named Joshua’s Nightmares. In moments of pride, I would insist on calling it my web site and not my blog. I would post frequently, and then I would drop off of the planet because of other obligations. And then I would do absurd things like force myself to keep active while binge-writing a novel in under three months. I even shelled out some money so my WordPress could be listed as misadventuresinfiction.com (a fact that will never fail to make me smile for some reason).

Why misadventures, though? Why not adventures? Quests? Journeys, even? This is something I failed to consider, largely choosing misadventures because it felt right. It had that little bit of silly humor to it, and Misadventures in Fiction just sort of rolls off the tongue (or, perhaps, it awkwardly clunks off of the tongue). The title happened, it stuck, and I grew to love it as time marched along, as any creator often does (while spending much time in self-loathing for other things). Continue reading →