It's time, once again, for everyone to climb aboard the IWSG train!
This month I'm just going to briefly touch on my plans for April's annual A-to-Z Challenge. This year I'll be participating at Sigild V, where I tend to post my short fiction experiments, so yes, that means I will be writing fiction this year. I tried doing that last year, but it didn't go over well, so I switched tactics. This year, however, I'm writing ahead, so everything will be done before anyone reads a word of it. This will also have the effect of getting me back into the writing mode, which is something I've been working on the past few months, after an especially trying period in my life. I've found that the years I spent writing full-length manuscripts were perhaps a more unique period than I thought they were, certainly an excellent foundation for future efforts, but something that now seems like a different phase of my life as a writer, and so once again I'm relearning what exactly that means.
Always keeping things interesting...
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Friday, February 12, 2016
WRiTE CLUB 2016
In my ongoing attempts to right the wrongs of my past, I'm allowing myself another shot at DL Hammons' WRiTE CLUB. I've participated twice before. The second time, after there started being so many would-be participants not everyone even made it into the competition, I...didn't make it into the competition. I think. Either way, I haven't done very well. The first year I was pretty grumpy, and that's mostly what I need to overcome. I hate being grumpy. I can't help it, possibly, but I can also choose not to foist the grumpiness on others. Try and be positive. Try. This kind of thing comes with the territory. That's what I need to keep reminding myself.
So I dashed off something that was fun to write, and that may be the only thing I take away from the experience this time, but it was fun to write, and that makes me feel good. Entrants have until the 26th (because apparently this year's contest is earlier than usual), and then I guess everything concludes before the end of April, and we can all move on, regardless of how things turn out...
So I dashed off something that was fun to write, and that may be the only thing I take away from the experience this time, but it was fun to write, and that makes me feel good. Entrants have until the 26th (because apparently this year's contest is earlier than usual), and then I guess everything concludes before the end of April, and we can all move on, regardless of how things turn out...
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
IWSG February 2016: Writer's Block
The first Wednesday of every month hosts the bloggers meeting of the Insecure Writers Support Group.
Today I'm going to talk about that most dreaded of subjects: writer's block. This is something I'm very passionate about, because I think it's one of the most misunderstood aspects of writing.
You know how it is. You want to write, but for whatever reason, you're completely unable to, not because you have too much demand for your time on other things, but because the words simply won't flow. Writers tend to find this incredibly frustrating, and why shouldn't they? Writers write. Right. They think there's something wrong with them. And that's simply not the case.
I'm here to argue that writer's block is the most useful tool in a writer's arsenal.
Pretty odd, right? But it's absolutely true. Have you ever heard a writer explain how after a certain point, a story just started to write itself? It's one of the weirdest aspects of writing, but it's also the most telling one. You can try and master a story yourself, but in the end it's the story itself that knows what it's doing, and every time you disagree, you end up with something less than what it could have been. I have a theory that the weakest stories are the ones the writer forced the most to happen, and the strongest are the ones that, well, wrote themselves.
What does this have to do with writer's block? This is the story trying to take over. And the writer just won't let it. It's essentially the writer getting in their own way and not even realizing it. It's the story telling the writer that they have to take a break. Yes, I'm literally saying that writer's block is a good thing, a necessary thing. The more you embrace it, the better off you'll be.
Because this is the point where you realize new possibilities. This is where the story becomes enriched, past the original idea and into a full-blown story. Not a series of events. A story. This is what truly makes a writer, the ability to distance their own ego from their work.
A lot of writers depend heavily on support. And this is a good thing. This is the writer acknowledging, once again, that they need some extra help. The story needs some work. Not mechanically. Okay, maybe sometimes mechanically. But whatever the case, the best storytelling is the product of acknowledging that something isn't write. It takes a humble writer to admit this.
Never take the reader's opinion for fact. Never take a critic's opinion for fact. If you've given the story the attention it needs, if you've allowed yourself to discover the authentic story, the right reader, the right critic will come along and figure out what you did, what the story did. Readers can be wrong. Critics can be wrong.
And most importantly, writers can be wrong. That's what writer's block is telling you. It's telling you that you need to step back and let the process work instead of trying to force it. Again, you can always tell when this hasn't happened. I'm not just talking about mechanics. More writers than any of us will ever care to admit suck at mechanics. Which is okay, because if you suck at mechanics but can somehow work around it, that's the story taking over, too, because the story will always know.
The story knows!
Sounds crazy, I know. But it's my guiding principle. And every time I've had writer's block, I've ended up with a story that feels more right than it did before. I've been in writer's block on the latest story I'm working on, Miss Simon's Moxie (previously talked about here as Miss Simon's About the Moxie Incident). Miss Simon is herself a significant piece of discovery in my writer's block, as I've talked about before. She's become something of an inspiration machine. A year or so ago, I was working on what has now become Miss Simon's Brute, and I'm only now beginning to see how important it is for her to be a part of that one, and why the recent idea for Miss Simon's Dime Novel was responsible for the breakthrough on Miss Simon's Moxie (and how all of them will help writing what's now Miss Simon's Doom so much easier when I get around to that).
No, I'm not trying to hook you on a series of Miss Simon books. I'm just not that good enough at marketing. But this is not a case of something that works for me working for you just because I'd like to believe so.
Historically, retelling stories has been a major part of storytelling in general. More recently, I can think of one example where tackling the same subject has led to an incredibly richness that can only be understood by taking in all of the attempts. This is another form of letting the story speak for itself, an idea that just won't go away. To wit:
Consider the classic Bill Murray comedy Groundhog Day. You're probably familiar with it. His character keeps experiencing the same day over and over again. It's a terrible nightmare, but makes for a great movie.
Now, two more recent examples of this idea are Source Code and Edge of Tomorrow. I came to Source Code because I'd become a big fan of filmmaker Duncan Jones, who seems to be bursting with the same unique mindset as his father, the late David Bowie. In it, Jake Gyllenhaal, yes, keeps experiencing the same day over and over again. This time it's because he's been drafted by a military program that's using him to test out a new machine that will hopefully be able to prevent disasters. The whole experience is pretty transcendental for reasons I don't necessarily need to get into here.
Anyway, then there's Edge of Tomorrow, in which Tom Cruise, yes, experiences the same day over and over again. I finally got around to seeing this one because of all the positive chatter it received despite a rather tepid box office response. There came a point where I realized I'd seen something like it before. No, not Source Code or Groundhog Day, but The Matrix Reloaded.
What? Really? you're asking me, incredulous.
Really. This was the second movie in the Matrix trilogy. It was also the first of two massive disappointments for fans transfixed by the first one's suggestion that there's a good explanation for why life is so disappointing, and it involves lots of kung fu and explosions! Fans found the second and third films ultimately unnecessary attempts to duplicate the first one. I never saw them that way. What fans expected was to have the first one fleshed out.
And that's exactly what the sequels did. The thing is, they kind of explain that Neo's powers are derived the same way Tom Cruise eventually becomes a super soldier in Edge of Tomorrow. Cruise experiences the same events over and over again. He begins to anticipate rather than simply react. He's able to dodge what he knows is coming. Although this is not the way it's presented in Neo's case, by the second film we have that wonderfully verbose Architect explain it exactly that way.
So we end up, if we're paying attention and reading between the lines, realizing that the entire Matrix story is basically exactly like Edge of Tomorrow.
There is of course a massive difference in storytelling. That's the art of storytelling. That's why any of us thinks we have something new to say. That's why every time someone complains Hollywood has nothing new to say, or that there are no new stories, it's the silliest thing ever said. Because that's literally the story of storytelling. It's the way it's done.
And it can't happen if you don't let it. Get it?
The story knows best. Writer's block exists to help you. Get out of your own way. You'll be amazed at what results. And eventually, you'll have readers who do, too. I never subscribed to the idea that stories exist for immediate results. They are perfectly visceral things. And instant success is nice. Except sometimes the results aren't what you thought they'd be. Because you left out the most important part, the story itself. Because the story knows best. It understands better than you that the tradition isn't the enemy. You are. When you get in your own way, you'll be telling yourself that, too.
Now you know why.
Today I'm going to talk about that most dreaded of subjects: writer's block. This is something I'm very passionate about, because I think it's one of the most misunderstood aspects of writing.
You know how it is. You want to write, but for whatever reason, you're completely unable to, not because you have too much demand for your time on other things, but because the words simply won't flow. Writers tend to find this incredibly frustrating, and why shouldn't they? Writers write. Right. They think there's something wrong with them. And that's simply not the case.
I'm here to argue that writer's block is the most useful tool in a writer's arsenal.
Pretty odd, right? But it's absolutely true. Have you ever heard a writer explain how after a certain point, a story just started to write itself? It's one of the weirdest aspects of writing, but it's also the most telling one. You can try and master a story yourself, but in the end it's the story itself that knows what it's doing, and every time you disagree, you end up with something less than what it could have been. I have a theory that the weakest stories are the ones the writer forced the most to happen, and the strongest are the ones that, well, wrote themselves.
What does this have to do with writer's block? This is the story trying to take over. And the writer just won't let it. It's essentially the writer getting in their own way and not even realizing it. It's the story telling the writer that they have to take a break. Yes, I'm literally saying that writer's block is a good thing, a necessary thing. The more you embrace it, the better off you'll be.
Because this is the point where you realize new possibilities. This is where the story becomes enriched, past the original idea and into a full-blown story. Not a series of events. A story. This is what truly makes a writer, the ability to distance their own ego from their work.
A lot of writers depend heavily on support. And this is a good thing. This is the writer acknowledging, once again, that they need some extra help. The story needs some work. Not mechanically. Okay, maybe sometimes mechanically. But whatever the case, the best storytelling is the product of acknowledging that something isn't write. It takes a humble writer to admit this.
Never take the reader's opinion for fact. Never take a critic's opinion for fact. If you've given the story the attention it needs, if you've allowed yourself to discover the authentic story, the right reader, the right critic will come along and figure out what you did, what the story did. Readers can be wrong. Critics can be wrong.
And most importantly, writers can be wrong. That's what writer's block is telling you. It's telling you that you need to step back and let the process work instead of trying to force it. Again, you can always tell when this hasn't happened. I'm not just talking about mechanics. More writers than any of us will ever care to admit suck at mechanics. Which is okay, because if you suck at mechanics but can somehow work around it, that's the story taking over, too, because the story will always know.
The story knows!
Sounds crazy, I know. But it's my guiding principle. And every time I've had writer's block, I've ended up with a story that feels more right than it did before. I've been in writer's block on the latest story I'm working on, Miss Simon's Moxie (previously talked about here as Miss Simon's About the Moxie Incident). Miss Simon is herself a significant piece of discovery in my writer's block, as I've talked about before. She's become something of an inspiration machine. A year or so ago, I was working on what has now become Miss Simon's Brute, and I'm only now beginning to see how important it is for her to be a part of that one, and why the recent idea for Miss Simon's Dime Novel was responsible for the breakthrough on Miss Simon's Moxie (and how all of them will help writing what's now Miss Simon's Doom so much easier when I get around to that).
No, I'm not trying to hook you on a series of Miss Simon books. I'm just not that good enough at marketing. But this is not a case of something that works for me working for you just because I'd like to believe so.
Historically, retelling stories has been a major part of storytelling in general. More recently, I can think of one example where tackling the same subject has led to an incredibly richness that can only be understood by taking in all of the attempts. This is another form of letting the story speak for itself, an idea that just won't go away. To wit:
Consider the classic Bill Murray comedy Groundhog Day. You're probably familiar with it. His character keeps experiencing the same day over and over again. It's a terrible nightmare, but makes for a great movie.
Now, two more recent examples of this idea are Source Code and Edge of Tomorrow. I came to Source Code because I'd become a big fan of filmmaker Duncan Jones, who seems to be bursting with the same unique mindset as his father, the late David Bowie. In it, Jake Gyllenhaal, yes, keeps experiencing the same day over and over again. This time it's because he's been drafted by a military program that's using him to test out a new machine that will hopefully be able to prevent disasters. The whole experience is pretty transcendental for reasons I don't necessarily need to get into here.
Anyway, then there's Edge of Tomorrow, in which Tom Cruise, yes, experiences the same day over and over again. I finally got around to seeing this one because of all the positive chatter it received despite a rather tepid box office response. There came a point where I realized I'd seen something like it before. No, not Source Code or Groundhog Day, but The Matrix Reloaded.
What? Really? you're asking me, incredulous.
Really. This was the second movie in the Matrix trilogy. It was also the first of two massive disappointments for fans transfixed by the first one's suggestion that there's a good explanation for why life is so disappointing, and it involves lots of kung fu and explosions! Fans found the second and third films ultimately unnecessary attempts to duplicate the first one. I never saw them that way. What fans expected was to have the first one fleshed out.
And that's exactly what the sequels did. The thing is, they kind of explain that Neo's powers are derived the same way Tom Cruise eventually becomes a super soldier in Edge of Tomorrow. Cruise experiences the same events over and over again. He begins to anticipate rather than simply react. He's able to dodge what he knows is coming. Although this is not the way it's presented in Neo's case, by the second film we have that wonderfully verbose Architect explain it exactly that way.
So we end up, if we're paying attention and reading between the lines, realizing that the entire Matrix story is basically exactly like Edge of Tomorrow.
There is of course a massive difference in storytelling. That's the art of storytelling. That's why any of us thinks we have something new to say. That's why every time someone complains Hollywood has nothing new to say, or that there are no new stories, it's the silliest thing ever said. Because that's literally the story of storytelling. It's the way it's done.
And it can't happen if you don't let it. Get it?
The story knows best. Writer's block exists to help you. Get out of your own way. You'll be amazed at what results. And eventually, you'll have readers who do, too. I never subscribed to the idea that stories exist for immediate results. They are perfectly visceral things. And instant success is nice. Except sometimes the results aren't what you thought they'd be. Because you left out the most important part, the story itself. Because the story knows best. It understands better than you that the tradition isn't the enemy. You are. When you get in your own way, you'll be telling yourself that, too.
Now you know why.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
IWSG January 2016: New Year's Goals
The Insecure Writers Support Group meets digitally the first day of every month. This being the first of the new year, I figured I'd discuss goals and how I intend to approach them...
I've pushed myself for so long wanting and expecting and needing a paying future in writing that I've sometimes been hysterical about it. I couldn't see a future where I'd be happy doing anything else. Strangely, last year taught me a different way in the most unlikely circumstances possible. First I thought I might never write again, and then I found a new job, one I'd never thought I was remotely qualified for: helping raise a baby.
I won't regale you with the wonders I've already experienced in that regard here. Instead, I'll talk about my new perspective (same as the old one), and what it means about my writing future.
I will try and not push myself so hard, and not be so hard on myself. I will try to write, and let that be its own reward.
That's the short of it. The long of it is a series of projects, some old and some new. One of the old ones is Brute, a story I've talked about here in the past, previously entitled The Pond War. It's the manuscript I was working on a year ago that I ended up abandoning for a variety of reasons, one of them being guilt (I won't be talking about the reasons for that again). I always say that when a story has trouble being put into words, it's the story telling you that something is wrong, that if you persist with it as you're currently thinking about it, it's a mistake. Every story eventually takes on a life of it's own. I think most of the stories I've read that feel wrong are ones that were written without taking this into consideration.
So I had put it aside, and continued thinking about it, and eventually new thoughts came to me. Among them is the new narrator, Miss Simon. This old gal will be narrating a lot of my manuscripts, including About the Moxie Incident..., which concerns an amnesiac president strolling about Washington, D.C. Miss Simon is intended to help me find a consistent comedic voice. She made her debut in Mouldwarp Press Presents: Barbarian Translation - The Trojan War, which took care of two birds as a result (I have a jones to write about the Trojan War). I liked the results, so the idea seems like a go.
I've been thinking about my Space Corps saga lately, thanks to my sister's feedback on the Seven Thunders manuscript I've had sitting around for a few years. She wanted to know if the main characters were going to pop up in later books. The more I thought about it (one of them was always going to star in one already, but the main character was only going to make a cameo at best), the more I knew what to do about that.
So I've become more interested in getting around to writing more Space Corps books. The only thing I want to do before I get into that (besides, probably, the Brute and About the Moxie Incident... manuscripts) is take one last stab at the Star Trek writing contests I've been entering for fifteen years (with a gap, mind you). There's another one for this year's fiftieth anniversary of the franchise. I've got a handful of days to write an entry. If I win entry into the anthology, there's a publishing deal that comes with it. I will go ahead with Seven Thunders, which has always been my baby. If I don't, I will self-publish Seven Thunders, something I've been long reluctant to do. But things have changed. I kind of no longer expect big readership. If I'm going to write this stuff, and be such a coward (and/or completely incompetent) in the submissions process, it might as well be at least available.
It's not quite the same with my comics goals. I lost another contest, but I'm sticking around the venue, which is kind of like what I was doing a decade ago. If someone notices whether or not I have talent and/or potential, so be it. But I guess I'm no longer absolutely concerned as to whether or not I have a future in comics. I don't know whether it's because I've written so many novel manuscripts since the last time I pursued this particular goal, and not written nearly as much material in comic script form, but at the moment I'm just wondering if this one's at all reasonable at this point. The guy who beat me (y'know, relatively speaking), has obviously made a lot more progress, with or without the win. (His name? Deniz Camp. If he turns out like Drew Melbourne, at least I'll get to talk about things like Double Steak Day!)
I haven't talked about comic books nearly as much as I have prose fiction here. That may change in the coming year, too.
But I'm officially taking the pressure off myself. If nothing really happens for me, so be it. There's an adorable little girl who probably won't really care anyway.
I've pushed myself for so long wanting and expecting and needing a paying future in writing that I've sometimes been hysterical about it. I couldn't see a future where I'd be happy doing anything else. Strangely, last year taught me a different way in the most unlikely circumstances possible. First I thought I might never write again, and then I found a new job, one I'd never thought I was remotely qualified for: helping raise a baby.
I won't regale you with the wonders I've already experienced in that regard here. Instead, I'll talk about my new perspective (same as the old one), and what it means about my writing future.
I will try and not push myself so hard, and not be so hard on myself. I will try to write, and let that be its own reward.
That's the short of it. The long of it is a series of projects, some old and some new. One of the old ones is Brute, a story I've talked about here in the past, previously entitled The Pond War. It's the manuscript I was working on a year ago that I ended up abandoning for a variety of reasons, one of them being guilt (I won't be talking about the reasons for that again). I always say that when a story has trouble being put into words, it's the story telling you that something is wrong, that if you persist with it as you're currently thinking about it, it's a mistake. Every story eventually takes on a life of it's own. I think most of the stories I've read that feel wrong are ones that were written without taking this into consideration.
So I had put it aside, and continued thinking about it, and eventually new thoughts came to me. Among them is the new narrator, Miss Simon. This old gal will be narrating a lot of my manuscripts, including About the Moxie Incident..., which concerns an amnesiac president strolling about Washington, D.C. Miss Simon is intended to help me find a consistent comedic voice. She made her debut in Mouldwarp Press Presents: Barbarian Translation - The Trojan War, which took care of two birds as a result (I have a jones to write about the Trojan War). I liked the results, so the idea seems like a go.
I've been thinking about my Space Corps saga lately, thanks to my sister's feedback on the Seven Thunders manuscript I've had sitting around for a few years. She wanted to know if the main characters were going to pop up in later books. The more I thought about it (one of them was always going to star in one already, but the main character was only going to make a cameo at best), the more I knew what to do about that.
So I've become more interested in getting around to writing more Space Corps books. The only thing I want to do before I get into that (besides, probably, the Brute and About the Moxie Incident... manuscripts) is take one last stab at the Star Trek writing contests I've been entering for fifteen years (with a gap, mind you). There's another one for this year's fiftieth anniversary of the franchise. I've got a handful of days to write an entry. If I win entry into the anthology, there's a publishing deal that comes with it. I will go ahead with Seven Thunders, which has always been my baby. If I don't, I will self-publish Seven Thunders, something I've been long reluctant to do. But things have changed. I kind of no longer expect big readership. If I'm going to write this stuff, and be such a coward (and/or completely incompetent) in the submissions process, it might as well be at least available.
It's not quite the same with my comics goals. I lost another contest, but I'm sticking around the venue, which is kind of like what I was doing a decade ago. If someone notices whether or not I have talent and/or potential, so be it. But I guess I'm no longer absolutely concerned as to whether or not I have a future in comics. I don't know whether it's because I've written so many novel manuscripts since the last time I pursued this particular goal, and not written nearly as much material in comic script form, but at the moment I'm just wondering if this one's at all reasonable at this point. The guy who beat me (y'know, relatively speaking), has obviously made a lot more progress, with or without the win. (His name? Deniz Camp. If he turns out like Drew Melbourne, at least I'll get to talk about things like Double Steak Day!)
I haven't talked about comic books nearly as much as I have prose fiction here. That may change in the coming year, too.
But I'm officially taking the pressure off myself. If nothing really happens for me, so be it. There's an adorable little girl who probably won't really care anyway.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
What did I accomplish in 2015?
I wrote very little in 2015.
This is in large part because of how 2014 ended, and how 2015 began. I don't want to rehash, as I don't want people caring about me just because they're feeling sympathetic, but here we go in a nutshell:
My mother went into a nursing home last November, and I was almost too busy working on a manuscript to realize how big a moment that was. Then she died in March, and I've been working my way toward finding it acceptable to write again ever since.
I've put so much pressure on myself to find some measure of success as a writer, so much emphasis on finding someone to help me make it a paying career, that it's really become something of a mania in my life. But the truth is, some things really are more important. Life itself, for instance.
Slowly, I started working on projects again. Lately I've been reconsidering my potential future in comics (which has been a potential future for about a decade now). Just before Christmas I found out I'd lost another contest. I let it bother me until finally, I accepted the idea of perspective again.
If it's not going to happen, fine.
What's bothered me so much about the writers blogging community is that everyone seems to think success is out there right here and now, and they support each other so blindly they never even stop for a second to think that it really isn't, and if it isn't that it's not the end of the world.
But in July, I met someone new. Brand new. My sister's bouncing new daughter. Between her birth and my mother's death, my life has been on a completely different roller coaster these past few years. I returned home to Maine to help my mother, and it became a full witness to the end of her life. Now I'm living in Virginia, helping my sister raise her daughter. Three years ago, I would never have imagined any of that. Three years ago, and two years ago, and a year ago, I still thought of my life in one way. Now, it's become something else.
Some people shudder at the phrase, "art for art's sake." And my pursuit of it has made my journey incredibly difficult over the years. Now it means something else, too. See you next week to discuss that.
This is in large part because of how 2014 ended, and how 2015 began. I don't want to rehash, as I don't want people caring about me just because they're feeling sympathetic, but here we go in a nutshell:
My mother went into a nursing home last November, and I was almost too busy working on a manuscript to realize how big a moment that was. Then she died in March, and I've been working my way toward finding it acceptable to write again ever since.
I've put so much pressure on myself to find some measure of success as a writer, so much emphasis on finding someone to help me make it a paying career, that it's really become something of a mania in my life. But the truth is, some things really are more important. Life itself, for instance.
Slowly, I started working on projects again. Lately I've been reconsidering my potential future in comics (which has been a potential future for about a decade now). Just before Christmas I found out I'd lost another contest. I let it bother me until finally, I accepted the idea of perspective again.
If it's not going to happen, fine.
What's bothered me so much about the writers blogging community is that everyone seems to think success is out there right here and now, and they support each other so blindly they never even stop for a second to think that it really isn't, and if it isn't that it's not the end of the world.
But in July, I met someone new. Brand new. My sister's bouncing new daughter. Between her birth and my mother's death, my life has been on a completely different roller coaster these past few years. I returned home to Maine to help my mother, and it became a full witness to the end of her life. Now I'm living in Virginia, helping my sister raise her daughter. Three years ago, I would never have imagined any of that. Three years ago, and two years ago, and a year ago, I still thought of my life in one way. Now, it's become something else.
Some people shudder at the phrase, "art for art's sake." And my pursuit of it has made my journey incredibly difficult over the years. Now it means something else, too. See you next week to discuss that.
Monday, December 14, 2015
Barbarian Translation - The Trojan War release
Mouldwarp Press Presents #3 Barbarian Translation - The Trojan War has now been released.
To give you a refresher course on it, this is, as the title suggests, the third volume in my Mouldwarp Press Presents anthology series, and yes, it features variations on the classic tale of the Trojan War. Featured is my WriteClubCo colleague Christy Wiabel, who also had a story in the first volume, Project Mayhem, and a new story from me.
I'm particularly excited to present this story, because I love the Trojan War (clearly), and I've been wanting to tell a version of the Troilus & Cressida romance for years. Plus, I recently came up with a shiny new storytelling device, the character of Miss Simon, who will probably be the narrator for a number of novels I will be writing in the future. This was her pilot episode, so to speak, her secret origin.
To give you a refresher course on it, this is, as the title suggests, the third volume in my Mouldwarp Press Presents anthology series, and yes, it features variations on the classic tale of the Trojan War. Featured is my WriteClubCo colleague Christy Wiabel, who also had a story in the first volume, Project Mayhem, and a new story from me.
I'm particularly excited to present this story, because I love the Trojan War (clearly), and I've been wanting to tell a version of the Troilus & Cressida romance for years. Plus, I recently came up with a shiny new storytelling device, the character of Miss Simon, who will probably be the narrator for a number of novels I will be writing in the future. This was her pilot episode, so to speak, her secret origin.
Thursday, December 10, 2015
My third anthology is being processed...
The third Mouldwarp Press Presents anthology has been submitted to CreateSpace and will be available shortly. After the relative flood of submissions to the first volume, I haven't had nearly as much luck with subsequent ones. This will be the second consecutive one to feature two stories, with one of them being mine. The good news is that both of them featured return contributors from the first volume, and Barbarian Translation - The Trojan War will feature a story from one of my good friends from WriteClubCo, Christy Wiabel, one of those genuinely good people that're so hard to find.
MPP exists at all because I wanted to make good with my own past experiences with anthology startups. If there's another volume, I'll attempt to finally publish stories meant for the aborted effort that was the direct genesis for this venture. If that doesn't happen, I'm more than happy with the results I've had. Mouldwarp Press is a fake publishing company. On the surface, it operates much the way indy publishers tend to, existing as a vehicle for the originating writer's own work, plus anthologies that feature more of their work, and a few of their friends as well (and assorted stragglers gullible enough to sign up for such schemes). (That's been my experience, anyway.) The truth is, "Mouldwarp Press" is a label I've been slapping on books I publish via CreateSpace and Kindle, and the Mouldwarp Press Presents anthologies have been of the same kind.
I don't know if I originally believed that they might become something more, but the fact is they didn't. I'm truly sorry if anyone got involved with them believing otherwise. Being a writer is not an easy calling. And it is a calling. The journey is the best part, the process of writing itself. The destination? More than in any other activity you might pursue, the destination is an open question all the way to the end. Because, there is no end. The history of storytelling is replete with examples.
Somewhere along the course of my journey, I ended up blogging in a community that didn't always seem to share my goals. My passion? Sure. But the expectations were something else. This post is not an admission of defeat, concession, or apology (except for the one above). It's an acknowledgment, without judgment (hey, sometimes even I can get around to that), that sometimes all things aren't equal because they aren't.
What this is saying is that for once, I will say something here and feel comfortable knowing that it might be the last thing someone reads about my journey. I'm switching gears. I've always got projects in the pipeline, things I want to accomplish, but this is an end to what can sometimes feel like a competition. I didn't come here, I didn't start this, to convince you to like me. If you're reading this at all, thank you.
There's always more...
MPP exists at all because I wanted to make good with my own past experiences with anthology startups. If there's another volume, I'll attempt to finally publish stories meant for the aborted effort that was the direct genesis for this venture. If that doesn't happen, I'm more than happy with the results I've had. Mouldwarp Press is a fake publishing company. On the surface, it operates much the way indy publishers tend to, existing as a vehicle for the originating writer's own work, plus anthologies that feature more of their work, and a few of their friends as well (and assorted stragglers gullible enough to sign up for such schemes). (That's been my experience, anyway.) The truth is, "Mouldwarp Press" is a label I've been slapping on books I publish via CreateSpace and Kindle, and the Mouldwarp Press Presents anthologies have been of the same kind.
I don't know if I originally believed that they might become something more, but the fact is they didn't. I'm truly sorry if anyone got involved with them believing otherwise. Being a writer is not an easy calling. And it is a calling. The journey is the best part, the process of writing itself. The destination? More than in any other activity you might pursue, the destination is an open question all the way to the end. Because, there is no end. The history of storytelling is replete with examples.
Somewhere along the course of my journey, I ended up blogging in a community that didn't always seem to share my goals. My passion? Sure. But the expectations were something else. This post is not an admission of defeat, concession, or apology (except for the one above). It's an acknowledgment, without judgment (hey, sometimes even I can get around to that), that sometimes all things aren't equal because they aren't.
What this is saying is that for once, I will say something here and feel comfortable knowing that it might be the last thing someone reads about my journey. I'm switching gears. I've always got projects in the pipeline, things I want to accomplish, but this is an end to what can sometimes feel like a competition. I didn't come here, I didn't start this, to convince you to like me. If you're reading this at all, thank you.
There's always more...
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