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There’s Nothing to Say

There’s Nothing to Say

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Image by LoggaWiggler from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

I have to admit, I’m a little stuck as to what to share with you today, given the horrendous news cycle. I am struggling to think of anything else but all the awful things that are going on in the wider world, save for the current work in progress that I have finally begun writing again after many, many months off (I was supposed to have finished this book in February). And I can’t really talk about that since, the book being in the unfinished first phase rough, no one will know what the hell I’m referring to when I do talk about it.

I’m not sure that even if I had anything constructive to say directly regarding this WIP that it would do any good, as it is the third book in a series, and I haven’t even bothered to shop the first book yet. There’s no point in trying to create buzz around a book that doesn’t even have a publication date… and may not, depending on how well it does during submission. I mean, I don’t have a book coming out until 2026, and if the first book were to be picked up, it’d be published maybe 2027 if I’m extremely lucky. Likely much later.

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Truth, Lies, and Vinyl Wonderland

Truth, Lies, and Vinyl Wonderland

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Vinyl Wonderland (Castle Bridge Media,
June 25, 2024). Cover uncredited

Some months back, I was toiling away in the vast Indiana compound of Black Gate, when I received a text from publisher John O’Neill, who had just finished reading my new novel, Vinyl Wonderland. He told me how much he enjoyed it –– don’t take my word for it, ask him –– and then he told me how sorry he was.

“What for?” I asked.

“Well,” said John, “if you had to live through even half of what your main character went through, then you’ve had one hell of a rough ride.”

I thought about what John had said as I made my nightly rounds of the massive server farm that houses all of Black Gate’s backlogged posts (including over one hundred of mine). Eventually, I crawled off to bed, feeling hopeful that the local kobolds wouldn’t stage another uprising until next month, so that I could get a good night’s rest.

The morning brought clarity, as it often does, and I sat up in bed like a shot. “A liar,” I declared, quoting Quintilian, “should have a good memory!”

Fiction is a lie, after all, spun from gossamer truths, and therefore I, as a writer of fiction, must be a liar. It follows that to succeed in my craft, I must cultivate an excellent memory. Logic (and Quintilian) demand it.

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The Double-Edged Blade of Social Media

The Double-Edged Blade of Social Media

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn!

It’s me again. Here to wax lyrical about social media and how it is both a boon and a bane for the creatives of the world. As it is for most everyone, I think. Let’s be honest, as a means of connecting people, finding community and disseminating information with incredible ease and speed, social media is absolutely unparalleled. Of course, on the flip-side, it is a vicious tool for deliberate bullying, polarisation, and the disastrous spread of misinformation. It seems that whatever the effect of social media, be it good or ill, there is something on the other edge that serves as to balance it out… more or less.

For a writer, or any creative, really, it is an incredible tool. It is also a terrible burden. Does the good outweigh the bad, or at least is the balance a net null? It seems that if we have any hope of being successful, we cannot escape social media (however much we may detest the need of it). But is that actually true? Is it really worth it for us to be there?

Let’s take a look at the positive and pitfalls of using social media as a creative.

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Git Gud, Scrub

Git Gud, Scrub

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Image by Van3ssa 🩺🎵 Desiré 🙏 Dazzy 🎹 from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn!

This post is for the baby writers out there, those of you who have finished your first book, or will be finishing soon and are deciding what to do with it. If you’ve done your research on the publishing process, this post will not come as a surprise to you. There are however, still a large number of writers entering the publishing space clinging to much-disproven ideas about what it’s going to look like.

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GEN CON WRITERS’ SYMPOSIUM AUG 1-4, 2024: SPECIAL GUESTS AND PROGRAM RELEASE

GEN CON WRITERS’ SYMPOSIUM AUG 1-4, 2024: SPECIAL GUESTS AND PROGRAM RELEASE

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Gen Con Writers’ Symposium

This post announces our 2024 Special Guests and reveals the Program. May 19th is the official registration day, but attendees can wishlist their events now!

Gen Con is the largest tabletop gaming convention in North America. In 2023, they welcomed over 70,000 unique visitors and offered over 19,000 events. By its nature, Gen Con attracts a large number of attendees who enjoy speculative fiction across formats. Gen Con 2024 will be held August 1-4 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The Gen Con Writers’ Symposium is a semi-independent event hosted by Gen Con. It’s focused on writers of games and speculative fiction of all experience levels, but with as much fun and interest for gamers, readers, and fans. All registration is handled through the Gen Con website.  In the past 28 years, the Writers’ Symposium has grown from a small set of panels over a day or two of the convention to one of the largest convention-hosted writing tracks in North America, offering hundreds of hours of programming from 70+ authors, editors, agents, and publishers to nearly 3000 unique visitors per year on average.  We’ll be on the second floor of the Indianapolis Downtown Marriott (i.e., not the adjacent JW Marriott ). Head to our event at 350 W Maryland St, Indianapolis, IN 46225. The Black Gate Convention report for last year’s symposium gives a good flavor of what to expect, and the planning committee’s website at genconwriters.org has all the details.

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Courage Does Not Always Roar

Courage Does Not Always Roar

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This is one of mine

Good afterevenmorn!

As I’m prepping for the release of the first part of my free serial story on my person blog (11 days!), I’m thinking a great deal about the characters I tend to find most interesting and therefore tend to write the most about — those poor traumatized souls. It’s not just that they’re imperfect (perfection is horrendously dull, I find), or even just that they’re deeply flawed. They’re hurting and more often than not, they’re acting from that place of hurt. These are the characters I find more fascinating than others both to read and write about. You see, there are two ways they could go. They could either be a hero or a villain, and the smallest slip would begin the plunge into villainy, while achieving heroic heights is always an intense struggle. Reading characters that are teetering on that knife edge is always a good time for me.

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Don’t Quit

Don’t Quit

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Image by PDPics from Pixabay

Goodafterevenmorn!

You may recall that I once said that all writing advice is bunk (sort of). I hold that to be mostly true. Knowing this, I’m still going to offer some advice to anyone out there who happens to be a struggling writer (hello, I’m your resident frustrated author who thinks of giving up three times a day. Welcome to my little support group. Do take a seat), because it’s something I desperately need to remind myself. Repeatedly. If there’s one piece of writing advice you should follow to the letter, it’s this:

Don’t quit.

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The Content Warning Debate

The Content Warning Debate

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This is a trigger fish, apparently: Image by Brigitte Werner from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn!

In an effort to try and get myself “out there,” so to speak, and figure out what marketing tricks I can use that don’t feel horrendously icky to me in order to try and inch towards making a living from my writing, I spend a lot of time on TikTok. I sometimes attempt to get my books out there, but those videos never get any views. When I’m just fooling around with the various filters they have, I often get far more views; in the hundreds or thousands. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the algorithm, or how to take advantage of it. I am terrible at marketing. Still, I try. And I’ll keep trying. Maybe I’ll have it work out randomly. Mostly, I just waste hours of my life scrolling through my feed, which currently consists of international news, Hozier (I watched two videos and TikTok has decided I’m obsessed), and a lot of book content. As is usually the case in BookTok, there is a debate raging right now regarding content/trigger warning appearing at the front of the book.

It’s quite an interesting debate.

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What Makes a Project a “Passion Project”?

What Makes a Project a “Passion Project”?

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For me, a passion project is something that could not be sold in a traditional sense to the mainstream market, but you want — need — to create it anyway. Dear Penpal, Belgium 1980 is the kind of project that I could not sell to a traditional publication house despite it being a middle grade-appropriate cozy ghost story. Partly because it is told in 24 physical letters. Partly because while it is middle grade-appropriate, its ephemeral nature and subject matter will appeal to a broad range of ages — which makes it hard for any marketing department to categorize.

It’s not just a ghost story. Nor is it just a story of a Gen-X, latchkey kid trying to survive in a foreign country. Nor is it just a story about the importance of family (especially a military family) and the power of friendship. It is a project that defies conventional age, topic, and multimedia barriers.

For this passion project, the questions I get most often are: “Why physical letters?” and “Why Belgium in 1980?”

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The Creative Friends Problem

The Creative Friends Problem

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Image by Elisa from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn!

In a rather dangerous pastime, I’ve been thinking. I’m a writer, you see (like I don’t mention that as much as possible. How insufferable. Anyway…), and as a writer, I’ve made a good many friends who are also writers. We attend conventions together, we join writing groups, or go out for coffee and chat. In fact, I’m quite certain that the majority of my friends are creatives of one sort or another, and the vast majority of those are fellow writers.

Which, frankly, is fantastic.

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