Course-Charting

Let’s talk a little about inspiration for this blog. When I started it, my biggest motivator was Lunar Eclipse being published, and wanting to have a writing-focused web presence. (This website/domain was previously my online portfolio.) I knew I could’ve spent forever coming up with a “strategy” and/or writing posts before going live, but the story’s publication date wasn’t going to move. Since I wanted to have something ready when the story got published, I jumped right in without much of a plan.

And here we are, several weeks after Lunar Eclipse’s pub date, and I feel rather in over my head. But it’s been a great in one area in particular: I’m writing more regularly. Even though the first few posts had two or three weeks between them, I’m now more into the groove of posting every week. Around this time last year, I used Splickety’s monthly prompts to get myself to write on a monthly basis (and it mostly worked!). So it’s nice to have this as a motivator to post something not just every month, but every week.

The key word there being “something.” Right now, posts have run the gamut from flash fiction pieces to a list of favorite books to thoughts about this website to podcast links. There’s definitely a writing theme, but not much else tying things together.

I’ve realized that my issue is less about the content of posts, and more about the purpose of this blog/site. I think that once I identify that, I’ll have a better sense of what to post about. And even though I’m reluctant to pick one, I think the point of this blog (at the moment at least) is chronicling my journey of taking my writing more seriously and developing my stories/projects.

My biggest inspiration for this is Jason Brubaker’s reMIND blog (there’s also an inkling of post about this). While he was releasing his graphic novel online page-by-page, he also posted about the process itself — website hosting, advertising, coloring, printing, running a Kickstarter, etc. It was super insightful! And I think that’s what I want to do with this.

It sounds rather meta, but it’s the approach that most intrigues me. I do still want to include posts about things that I find inspiring, or progress I’m making on projects (assuming consistent forward progress). And I’ll definitely post about published pieces as/if they come along. But since this is still a work-in-progress (and I have so few readers!) I think there’s plenty of room to experiment and course-correct as things evolve. So let’s go.

Podcasts on Story Structure and Length

One of the main podcasts I listen to is Writing Excuses. In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s hosted by a number of established authors talking about the craft of writing. It’s in its twelfth season (!) and they’re still coming up with interesting topics every week.

They’ve recently recorded a few podcasts about how to structure stories of different lengths. Since I currently focus on flash fiction but would like to expand to novel-length stories one day, I thought they’d be good links to a) share with people who might be interested and b) save for posterity for my own sake, too. I thought it was particularly useful in the short pieces episode when they talked about short story publications. So here they are!

Writing Excuses 12:32 Structuring a Short Piece

Writing Excuses 12:36 Structuring a Mid-length Piece

Writing Excuses 12:40 Structuring a Novel

The Imp and the Elf

As you know from last week’s post, I was published in the most recent issue of Havok! If you haven’t read it yet, check it out before reading the rest of this post.

Moving on. As I mentioned last week, the prompt for this issue was “Holiday cauldron.” But I didn’t mention that “Lunar Eclipse” was actually the second story I wrote for this prompt. Originally, I wrote a different flash fiction piece about an imp and an elf struggling with some issues in their workplaces. I finished this story, then re-read the prompt and realized that Havok wanted something with a darker tone than what I had written. Thus, “Lunar Eclipse” was conceived.

But I still have the imp/elf story, and one of my friends recently said he’d be interested in reading my original holiday mashup. And this blog seemed like just the place to share it. So click through to read “The Imp and the Elf” and let me know what you think!

Continue reading “The Imp and the Elf” →

Lunar Eclipse

Today’s a big week! This month, Havok Magazine (Splickety’s genre fiction imprint) published my flash fiction piece “Lunar Eclipse”! Check it out now!

The prompt for this month’s theme was “Holiday cauldron” — basically mashing up several holidays (like A Nightmare Before Christmas or Rise of the Guardians), and throwing in a little Halloween spookiness.

Which holidays did I pick, you might ask? St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, and … Lunar New Year. I’m stoked with how it turned out and super honored that it was chosen for publication. Plus, when you purchase the issue, you’ll get ten other stories based on the same theme! (I particularly liked “Diary of a Colonist” and “The New World.”)

So what are you waiting for? Read “Lunar Eclipse” now!

Hard copy & digital: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1354309

Amazon kindle: http://a.co/iTOa3ne

Some of My Favorite Books

Since I’m still pretty new to the blogosphere, I’m still in the process of brainstorming and developing post ideas. And, as a writer, it seems only natural for some self-generated content to include some of my favorite books. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and the books aren’t arranged in any particular order, but they’re some of the first titles that come to mind when I think of some of the books that have had the biggest effect on me.

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. When people ask what my favorite book is, this is my most common answer. I vaguely remember being really intimidated by its size as a young kid, but eventually mustered myself to tackle it. And when I did, it blew my mind. The self-referential narrative and scores of characters with unique stories expanded my idea of what I thought a book could be, and, ultimately, inspired me to start creating my own stories.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (and whole Narnia series) by C.S. Lewis. The Neverending Story may have got me started on storytelling/creating, but The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe got me started on reading. I wasn’t much of a reader at a really young age, but my mom insisted that I read the Chronicles of Narnia. I in turn insisted that I start with LWW because my brother and I watched the animated 1979 version on VHS. By the time I finished, I was hooked. I devoured the series, moved on to other fantasy books, and never looked back.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. My mom (sense a theme here?) read this to my brother and I when we were young kids, and I fully intend to do the same with my own one day. It took me quite some time after that to move on to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I really loved how The Hobbit gave us a shared family memory.

Sabriel by Garth Nix. I read this classic YA adventure on a week-long Boy Scout trek. I had no idea what to expect, but was drawn into the world Nix created and revealed through Sabriel’s eyes. The combination of reading such a an engaging adventure while hiking through the Northern California forests made reading this book such an unforgettable experience. Even better, I was able to share this story with Nix in person at an author event where he signed and personalized it, and we were able to talk about our scouting experiences together!

Neverwhere and Stardust by Neil Gaiman. Once again, what made these books so special was their stories plus the memory of where I read them. I actually bought my copies of both books while studying abroad in London, and read them that same semester. It was so cool reading Neverwhere while living in London and able to go out and walk to the different places it references in London Below, and I really enjoyed reading Stardust at a time when I was going out every weekend and exploring other parts of England.

Like I said at the beginning, this is just a smattering of my favorite books, but there’s probably a reason they’re the first few to come to mind. I’ll most likely revisit this idea over a number of posts, but hopefully won’t resort to this theme too, too often, haha.

Short Story Ruminations

Even though I’d like to write longer fiction somewhere down the road, these days most of my creative writing is flash fiction. And since not all of them will be published (see “The Bard’s Blessing” from last week), I’m wondering if there’s any value to recording them here for posterity.

If I do, there are a few ways to go. At <1,000 words, flash fiction lends itself very nicely to blog post content. And that means a potentially deeper well to draw from every week (instead of scraping the metaphorical barrel for topics). One disadvantage of this is them likely getting lost among other posts, though this could be addressed with the Flash Fiction tag.

On the other hand, this particular WordPress theme has a full-width page template. It offers a nice, uncluttered layout — ideal for reading stories. But if I go this route, there’d need to be some directory or other way to access them. And if I listed them all on the Stories page, it could start to fill up really quickly. Maybe a dedicated Flash Fiction page would be the way to go…

At any rate, I don’t need to make that decision for a few weeks yet. This site, like my creative writing career as a whole, is still in its early stages. There’s plenty of time to prototype, get feedback, and refine. What say you?

The Bard’s Blessing

As a college student, I took a few fiction writing courses as an ETS (English and Textual Studies) minor. A couple of those have been lost to the ravages of time and/or computer migrations. But some still remain … including “The Bard’s Blessing.”

I wrote “The Bard’s Blessing” at a time when I wrote most of my stories as gifts for people, who in turn had heavily influenced those stories. So when my fiction writing professor tasked my class with writing a flash fiction piece, it was only natural for mine to be based (extremely) loosely on the class.

This means that “The Bard’s Blessing” is the first story I wrote as a piece of flash fiction (rather than one I just thought of as an assignment). I don’t think I’ll ever submit it anywhere, but I still think it should be made available for historicity’s sake if nothing else. It’s extremely short and kinda funny, so you should go read it now!

The Journal of Wonders

Let me start off this post about a short story . . . with a short story. A few months ago, I submitted a flash fiction* piece to Splickety’s “Medieval Mayhem” issue that I was really proud of. The prompt was to write a story set in medieval times that incorporated real historical figures or public domain characters from that period (King Arthur, Robin Hood, etc.). I brainstormed ideas and eventually came up with an angle that I thought might set it apart from other submissions. So I wrote it, sent it off, and waited.

They responded a few weeks later. They didn’t accept it for publication, but they did provide super encouraging feedback. So I moved on to the next prompt.

A few months after that, I received an email practically out of the blue from Splickety asking if they could feature the story on their blog! Of course I said yes. So I incorporated their feedback and sent it off once again. A few weeks later . . . they posted it! And thus “The Journal of Wonders” became my first published story. As for how it incorporates the medieval theme, you’ll have to read it to find out. To whet your appetite, here’s the first line:

I do not, as a rule, take kindly to shoppers who only look, never buy. But in this case, I studied this customer as much as he studied my wares. Fair skin is no common sight in Hormuz, and I wanted an opening to engage him.

Intrigued? Keep reading on Splickety’s Lightning blog! Enjoy!

*Flash fiction: Very short stories, in this case <700 words

The First Post

Everything needs to start somewhere, and so this is where my blog starts. Or, I suppose this is when it starts. Not a particularly notable day, but it needed to come some time.

Until a few days ago, this site was my online portfolio. Now it’s a blog where I hope to take my writing more seriously (read: frequently). The current plan is to publish one blog post a week, consistently (for perpetuity?). I like Wednesdays because they’re smack dab in the middle of the week, so hopefully the next post (theme/purpose TBD) will come in exactly one week.

I’m not sure how long this particular post will last, but as I’m editing and updating this refreshed website, it’d be nice to have some content to work with.

Thank you for reading!