Tag Archives: writing

Reviews shouldn’t be some twisted means of revenge

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts, Posts of a Rant-like Nature

Or “It took me way longer than it should have to come up with a title for this post because I’m just really pissed off.”

I think it’s safe to say that there’s at least one special someone in everyone’s life who manages to draw a certain level of rage, no matter what they do, for whatever reason. I know I have my fair share of such people. The sort of folks I make genuine efforts to avoid in public places, or make rather unkind comments about when I’m feeling particularly unkind (read as: far too often, probably). However, despite my ever-questionable moral compass, I have some limitations. For example: I would never, ever do something to deliberately harm another person, no matter how angry I am. I use the term harm in this case, because it encompasses so many different things one person can do to something else (another person, an animal, inanimate objects; whatever). Continue reading →

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 →

My conundrum of wanting to write versus being able to write

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts

Or “I promised myself I would do a little writing every day, and I refuse to break that promise” with a dash of “I resigned myself to not being productive tonight, so I had to prove myself wrong somehow or another.”

I need to write. It’s a compulsion, bordering on a requirement for my very survival (careful, I’m already getting all dramatic about writing and it’s only one line in, because the sub-title doesn’t actually count). If I don’t give my worlds a stage, or my characters the proper chance to have voices, who will? I mean, yes, you could argue that there are only so many, or so few, actual stories, and everything just reworks them to some degree or another, and I would agree to some extent. It’s all in the presentation, I say in such a powerful statement of the obvious that people pointing out how the sky is blue seem to have discovered a brave, new world full of awe-inspiring truths. That sentence was probably a lot more fun to write than it is to read, I imagine. 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 →

A rather sad changing of the guard

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff, Misadventures in Non-Fiction

Or “I have a dozen other things to be doing, but this is a mental health day and I’m making my way through it on my own damn terms.”

Yesterday was not a particularly good day for me, and I’ll spare the details because this is where I write about writing, and sometimes other artsy things that catch my eye. Maybe other odds and ends here and there. I will say that I am woefully behind where I’d like to be with Warpt Factor, and I largely blame the dreary gloom that’s settled in both in terms of weather and my moods. I apologize for that much because it’s been fun to write, and I certainly hope it’s been fun to read so far.

My Dell Studio laptop, named Satellite 5 (because Doctor Who, of course), blue-screened on me a couple times recently. Upon rebooting my nearly four-year-old laptop, it gave a different reason for the fatal errors, but none of them were particularly good or easily fixable. This is all particularly upsetting because Satellite 5 has been my trusty companion through much of my most difficult academic writing, as well as some of the hardest, best work I’ve done on my fiction. It’s what I used to make many–most, in fact–of the posts on Misadventures In Fiction, and it’s the computer from which this site was started. Needless to say, it’s with a heavy heart that I’ve decided it’s time to give Satellite 5 some much-needed rest. It’ll certainly see use, still, but not so much with its nearly useless battery, its replaced charger, and so on. Continue reading →

New (and maybe improved?) header image

Posted on by under General Bloggity Stuff

Or “I wanted to make something neat to go with the new layout, but I’m not particularly talented at taking pictures and also only have my phone for such things.”

I’m a bit iffy on how I feel about it, but I figured notebooks would be the way to go (and I also have a billion of the damn things in all shapes and sizes). I added in one of my pocket watches and a paper crane I made for kicks and giggles, and I’m relatively happy with how it turned out overall.

The only real pain in the ass I ran into was the white text, and the sizing of the sub-title’s font. Beyond that, I’m going to make a note here: huge success (as well as a Portal reference successfully thrown in there for good measure). Thoughts?

Also, I ended up taking pictures of Meowiarty, too, because he seems to think he’s a model.

Edit/Update:

Here’s a fun bit of mostly-worthless knowledge: I’ve got mostly Moleskine notebooks. I blame one particular Edinboro English professor for this. They are, and remain, my favorite brand of notebook, if only because I’m very fond of the travel-sized ones.

Why whimsy in my writing?

Posted on by under General Writing-Related Posts, Posts of a Rant-like Nature

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 →

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.