One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day 42

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

This Week in Misadventures – A Self-Intervention

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

This Week in Misadventures

It’s been a mostly-exciting, somewhat headache-inducing week. Let’s just leap into the actual post. I’m entirely too tired for this early, which is embarrassing, but I want to finish this post before I fall asleep on my Surface 2.

Writing

Do tweets count here? They still don’t, do they? Damn. Ignoring that, there’s “The Maskmaker’s Apprentice”, “Another Starstruck Misfit”, the cannibal story I still haven’t officially named…something else. My brain’s gone a bit soft. I need to get back into setting goals for myself in terms of weekly writing, which sounds mildly suicidal since I’m working on my One Hundred Days of Blogging posts as well. “The Maskmaker’s Apprentice” doesn’t count towards the goal of twenty stories posted, by the way, because I’m apparently challenging myself to write and rewarding myself by making it as punishing as possible. On the plus side, I’ve received so many new commenting readers. Mostly spammers writing comments in Russian, but I’m not too picky when it comes to comments.

I’ve got no particular plans for writing in this coming week, but I might just be lying there. We’ll see.

Reading

So many books, so little time. I’m rereading Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir), and I picked up The Long Mars. You may be saying “Phil, you buy a lot of books and you should probably read them instead of buying even more books,” to which I say I will never stop buying books. I should, however, get working on reading them. I think a great starting point would be to start over on The Long Earth, move on to The Long War, and then get to The Long Mars. I’m impatiently waiting for Bryan Lee O’Malley’s new graphic novel, Seconds, which sounds like it’ll be a terrific fun read.

Important Miscellany

Car inspection happens this week, which is important for my planned Chicago adventure at the end of August. I’m anxious that something will go horribly wrong, but when am I not? Don’t answer that, anyone. It’ll be the longest road-trip I’ve ever taken, and I’m going solo so it’ll be something else. We’ll see, once all is said and done, what something else turns out to be (good or bad). I’m considering a travel journal to post on here, as there’s still enough time for me to actually plan it out. Or put off planning it and just haphazardly meandering through it like I do with many other things.

The plans for this week include writing, reading, and a little recovering from last week. I’m more excited, I’ll admit, for the week after this one, as I work three days (thanks to a couple leftover paid holidays). Making a trip home to see my family, and I’ll have plenty of time to work on getting some additional writing done. None of which will be spoiled here, of course.

Here’s to a pleasant, hopefully peaceful week for everyone, and remember to keep the Kaiju population under control by getting your Kaiju spayed or neutered.

PS: I’m sorry, but I refuse to see this post linger just beneath five hundred words. Nope. Had to fix that.

Warpt Factor, installment six

Or “Wait, what? I actually wrote another one of these?”

This is long-overdue, and even more embarrassing because it was half-drafted for at least two months now. However, let’s not focus on that. Let’s focus on what shenanigans Izzy Warpt and the rest of the Lofty Albatross’ crew are getting themselves into now. Shorter entry, I’m afraid, but I’ll make up for it soon.

Continue reading

Warpt Factor, installment five

Or “I’m totally trying to compensate for slacking off in my down-and-gloomy moods by churning out more new content, plus I’m back to being all excited about writing.”

I’m queuing this post, but it’s essentially being made the same day as installment four. I know no shame. There may be some minor editing glitches, despite me looking it over a couple times, because my mind is presently focused on a presently top-secret project inspired by a Tumblr post (please remember, I know no shame). That should make an appearance soonish. Anyway, back to Warpt Factor!

Continue reading

Why whimsy in my writing?

Or “Sorry that I’m not sorry for getting up on my soapbox about writing, because this is my blog about writing (which is something, or so I’m told, I’m relatively good at.” Also, this may end up being on long-ass post. I’m still not sorry. Lastly: confetti and shit! This is totally my hundredth post on Misadventures in Fiction, and that’s really damn exciting for me.

I may have woken up with a touch of a hangover, and a slightly bitter taste in my mouth. My sister, her boyfriend, another friend of hers, and I went to Butcher and the Rye (a restaurant/whiskey bar in Pittsburgh, that was rather nice) last night, and I enjoyed three interesting mixed drinks. I swear this detail is relevant, and it’s not just a small reminder to myself on the matter of being more cautious with what liquors I mix (their blood and sand is delightful, by the way). Stepping back after finishing this post, I can honestly say it was just a framing device with the bitter taste, and a not entirely necessary mention of how I’ve grown fond of scotch in the past year. Hindsight and so on.

Moving along. I have been writing a good deal of fantasy since the start of this year, and I’ve recently returned to writing science fiction (with a humorous slant, of course, because I can’t take myself too seriously, and I expect not many other people can either). One result of this (ignoring the rather horrifying page counts I’ve produced) is I’ve found myself thinking back to a comment made in regards to my writing a while back. It obviously struck a nerve to some extent, and I’m sure that a few people who have heard me rant about this before will be wagging their fingers in my general direction later on (should they read this) for letting it gnaw at me now and again. I’ve mentioned it in other posts. The comment in question was part of a rejection, passed along by word of mouth, about how the piece I submitted was well-written. It was rejected because fantasy and science fiction are such antiquated genres. Continue reading

Warpt Factor, installment three

Or “I should be sleeping because I just worked over nine hours and have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow/today (because it’s past midnight)” with a hint of “I’m terrible at setting real, proper adult-like priorities, which explains a lot about me”.

Here’s installment three in Warpt Factor. It features a really horrible/great time travel pun. Oh, and more fun character development and stuff. So much for doing these at a reasonable pace, though. Continue reading

I may have an addiction to writing

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.