Tag Archives: fiction

Let the nail-biting…begin.

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts

Or “I haven’t sent anything out for publication consideration for far too long, and now that I have I’m nervous.”

It would be quite accurate to say I’ve been keeping myself busy with writing since the start of 2014. I’ve churned out hundreds of pages (somewhere upwards of five hundred now, actually), which is exciting, but it is by no means a reflection of how good the writing is. Or isn’t. My goal of seeking publication isn’t exactly a secret, in the sense that I’ve practically taken over a major cable channel to broadcast that tidbit at all times possible (except from 3a.m. to 5:30a.m., because everyone knows those times belong to the infomercials). The writing side of things has gotten to be second nature, but the seeking publication parts are still murky waters for me. Self-published work aside, I’ve got three by-lines to my name. Related: my god, I’ve not used that phrase since my days at Point Park. Anyway, there’s my Wreck-It Ralph review, there’s the extended non-fiction piece on modern sword collectors (which isn’t exactly readily available for people outside of Edinboro University), and “The Glasmoor Beldam” (not available yet).

Needless to say, I want to get more things published. However, I’m also bad at sorting those bits out. I know, I know. If I had as much drive for figuring out the best approach to getting published as I do for excusing my nervousness about publishing, I’d have a bazillion titles out there for people to enjoy. I’m all too aware of this.

I broke out the external hard drive (which is named Heart of Gold, because why not?), dusted off Death at Teatime, and found a magazine. A copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would come in handy about now, though I imagine I would still fail to follow its advice to not panic.

Now I play the waiting game. Fingers, toes, and other applicable appendages crossed. Here’s hoping Death at Teatime has finally earned a home somewhere.

Fickle Fate

Posted on by under Short Stories

Or “I was feeling lazy and never got past the working title, but it’s been a bad day so have some excuses for my laziness.”

This started off as a joke in a conversation with my friend Lindsey, who is an entirely remarkable writer, and it escalated into this short story. Enjoy. Warpt Factor 6 should be happening sooner than later at this point, but we’ll see where the rest of the week takes me.

Continue reading →

The Forgotten Side to a Fairytale

Posted on by under Short Stories

I’ve been writing for a fair number of years now, and one thing I’ve never been able to work up the nerve to do is ask someone if I could write something inspired by something they created. There have been plenty of times I’ve really considered it, but never quite had the nerve or motivation to ask. 

One day, relatively recently, a four-line story crossed my Dashboard (let’s just gloss over the fact I was on Tumblr, please). I did what I typically would do: liked it, reblogged it, and moved along. And then it stuck with me. Those four lines rattled around in my brain, a frequent distraction.

So, after a bit of debating on the matter, I messaged caliginosity (who originally posted “the stories fairytales don’t tell”) and asked if I could write a short story based around, and inspired by, their post. Here’s the source material, which can be viewed in its original state here: 

The prince fought valiantly.
He slayed the dragon.
The princess cried for days.
She loved that dragon.

— The stories fairytales don’t tell
The short story it inspired ended up a little over nine pages. I’m hoping it did the source material justice. Special thanks, again, to caliginosity for letting me write this (so long as I credited the original work and author, of course). Anyway, without further introduction, here’s “The Forgotten Side to a Fairytale.”

Continue reading →

I may have an addiction to writing

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts, Joshua's Nightmare Updates, Warpt Factor

Or “I’ve written over one hundred pages to Joshua’s Nightmares book two in under two weeks time, and I totally forgot to eat a few times during that writing.”

I weighed the pros and cons of getting started on Joshua’s Nightmares book two. I considered how I should probably wait until I get the feedback on book one and make the necessary edits. Friends suggested waiting as well. None of that stopped the ideas and characters from book two from rattling around in my brain, keeping me up at night when I should have been getting much-needed rest for my new job (which I may have forgotten to mention, I’m not sure; I got a promotion and am about halfway into my training). It was unruly, stubborn, and never let me alone until I finally caved and started writing.

And then I deleted the first ten pages completely. In a little under a week’s time, I found myself with over one hundred pages of the first draft completed (most of which had been critiqued by my entirely remarkable editing-friend, who has been invaluable throughout the writing process of Joshua’s Nightmares overall).

However, because I’ve been plugging away so tirelessly on whimsical fantasy, I decided it was time to try my hand at something far more serious: whimsical science fiction. Someone with a mouth, and probably something similar to a brain, once said that fantasy and science fiction are both antiquated genres, but that did little to my interests in them (and god help that smug bastard if I’m ever published on an even remotely decent-sized scale).

More importantly (or, in the spirit of sounding like an infomercial: Wait! There’s more!), my misadventurous journey to write boldly where many have written before will be one I share with you, dear readers.

The short story series: Warpt Factor. The plot: young Izzy Warpt dreams of one day joining the illustrious ranks of the Spiral Reach Academy, seeking out new and exciting discoveries among the stars. Her unbridled enthusiasm proves problematic at times, but nothing in the universe can stop her on her great adventure, even if she has to steal a ship to get it started.

I plan on posting the first installment relatively soon (think some point this weekend, probably), so keep an eye out.

The what-to-do-now of the waiting game

Posted on by under Joshua's Nightmare Updates

My brain is still processing that the first complete draft of Joshua’s Nightmares is finished. That the little red notebook of world-building has grown into a two-hundred-and-ninety-three page behemoth. I’m still really geeking out over all that, actually. In terms of page count, it’s four times as long as the story I wrote for my Thesis Seminar at Edinboro University.

And now what? I’ve sent off copies to friends I know will really dig for anything that could use fixing, and I find myself floating in a sort of limbo. I would go so far as to say this feels like I just sent my only child off to college, and I’m being that awful parent who started sobbing before I’d even gotten off the campus after saying goodbye.

My question to you, fellow writerly-folks, is how do you cope with that sudden absence of something where there was once a big project?

I could, theoretically, get started on Book 2 while the characters are fresh in my mind, but is that the best possible way to go?

All things considered, I am very happy with how the first draft turned out. It grew from a couple paragraphs that got stuck back last year, before I moved, to what it is now. There was something very energizing about getting back to writing regularly, and feeling good about what I was creating, so now I’m just wondering where I’ll channel some of that wild and crazy energy until the time for the bulk of the editing starts.

A short post with tremendous news

Posted on by under Joshua's Nightmare Updates

Or “I really need to get to bed, and I’m sorry for posting such a tiny post on something so big, but here’s some good news to follow the Oscars.”

Tonight, after about two months of very serious, dedicated sessions of writing, I have completed the first draft of book one of Joshua’s Nightmares. That’s not to say there isn’t a ton of editing ahead of it, and I’m sure it will be incredibly taxing to get things just the way I want them, but this has been such a thrilling, fantastic process for me, and I had to share the news. What happens next? We’ll have to wait and see.

I’m sure I’ll be very busy with the editing, once I pick it back up to look at the story with fresh eyes. Mine are currently bloodshot from the hours of staring at MS Word, so that’ll be a few days at least. I’m trying to not even think about the horrors of looking into publishing just yet, because that is all very foreign and scary to me still. I wish I were kidding.

The final stats for the first draft are as follows:

  • 293 pages in standard manuscript format
  • 79,575 words
  • 316KB in MS Word 2010 docx format
  • a total editing time of 57,781 minutes

I’d apologize for all the rambling I’ve done about this story (I feel so odd calling it a novel, because that just seems smug somehow? I don’t know), but I’m not actually sorry. This has been so much fun, and it really revived the joy I find in sitting down and just writing like crazy for hours on end.

And now for bedtime, because I have to be at work at my new job tomorrow. At the ungodly (read as perfectly reasonable) hour of 8a.m.

 

Updates, excitement, and justifying laziness

Posted on by under Joshua's Nightmare Updates

Or “I finally fixed my description for Joshua’s Nightmares, I have big writing news, and figured out a way to explain some of the laziness in my writing that makes sense.”

Over the course of the past month or so, I’ve written over fifty-thousand new words in my first draft of Joshua’s Nightmares. That’s a NaNoWriMo’s worth of words. Almost a metric shit-ton, or perhaps more than a metric- shit-ton (I honestly don’t know how to properly quantify that much, but I know it’s a lot). It’s been an extraordinary adventure, and I still have a fair bit to go before it’s over. Again, I want to apologize to, as well as thank, all of the people who have to endure me talking at great lengths about this project. I almost apologized to my journal a couple nights ago because I keep writing about writing this, and that’s when I realized I need to calm down and just enjoy every little bit of the writing process as this idea gradually grows into its end stages. It’s the longest piece of writing I’ve ever worked on, and it’s the most excited I’ve been to work on anything in quite some time (since before Thesis Seminar at Edinboro, which was certainly a thing that happened). It’s fifteen pages shy of hitting the 200 page mark, and that seems pretty amazing to me. Continue reading →

Reimagining the Bogeyman

Posted on by under Joshua's Nightmare Updates

Or “How I unintentionally transformed a villain whose sole purpose was to act as a plot device to something I think turned out pretty cool.”

Sometimes, and by sometimes I mean more often than I probably should, I create characters out of need to move the plot forward. Don’t give me that side-eyes look, now, because I’m sure it’s not an even remotely uncommon practice. I’m also, after a bit of fun personal experience, certain it can result in some pretty fun ideas. Continue reading →

Progress report on Joshua’s Nightmares

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, Joshua's Nightmare Updates

Or “I’m pretty damn excited because I’ve been writing all weekend, and this is the most I’ve enjoyed working on a project in a long, long time.”

Tonight, mere moments ago, Joshua’s Nightmares broke the 30,000 words mark. It’s on it’s forty-sixth page, and still has a ways to go before it’s completed. Most importantly, I’m loving every second of it.

I’d also like to extend my thanks to all of my followers. WordPress tells me I hit one hundred followers, and that’s also pretty amazing news. Thank you to everyone who has stuck around and kept reading. You’re all fantastic.

This post feels a bit naked without my standard, rambling prose, and so I’ll end it with this beautiful piece of music from the game Puppeteer (a game truly worth purchasing for its compelling narrative, beautiful art style, and amazing music).