Howdy, howdy, howdy. Been a while since I’ve done any writing on ye olde website. I’m going to be honest, a big part of this is because I’m not always sure what to write on here. I like fiction, but fiction short stories on a website struck me as a little strange. (Though I’m warming up to the idea. My most viewed article was a short story) I like to give out advice on here too, but it strikes me as a little disingenuous to do so.
Why you ask? Because I’m just a student myself. I’m learning, and like all students, I make a lot of mistakes along the way. There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes. I’ve always been a firm believer that you learn more from failure than success. No, the issue is passing things on to other learners. I don’t like the idea that my advice might lead someone astray. After all, things that work for me might not work in the least for you. Where I like to write 2,000 words a day, you might get burned out. (Or find it’s not enough) While I like to write back stories on my characters that nobody else gets to see, you might find it a tedious and fruitless exercise.
Above all, I don’t want to come off like some old pro on here. I’m so green that I still have the plastic on. I’ve only published one book, and I’m working on getting an agent to sell the rest through more traditional means. I find that that are too many chiefs and not enough Indians in the writing world. Every website and author presents itself as some wizened old sage giving off advice from atop the mountain. Many of them are. Some of them are not. I’ve learned to take any advice with a grain of salt. There is no one size fits all way to write. The only price of admission is your time and dedication, everything after that is just trying different things until you find what works best for you. There are no guarantees. Nothing is certain in this industry.
But enough of that, it sounds a little too morose.
I’ve been a busy man this year. Since December of 2014 I’ve finished the first draft of two books, edited one, and now I’m 22k words deep into my fourth. It’s been a very productive time. The second one is a great story about a group of refugees surviving after the world came to a cataclysmic end a decade before. *Digs around in folders* Let me see if I can find the blurb I wrote.
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“The old world is dead, and mankind struggles to survive in the shadows of the new one. Kyle, Sara, and Tim are scavengers, hiding in the remains of human civilization from the hungry things that destroyed it. Surviving on the few remaining items that haven’t rotted in the thirteen years since mankind was nearly wiped out.
But something has shown itself. A terrible creature that shows there is an intelligence to the madness of the beasts that destroyed the planet.
When the group finds Kaylee, a little girl who claims to know of a safe haven somewhere in Tennessee, they embark on a desperate journey to find it. Memory and loss, depravity and salvation— their last, desperate run will put them face to face with horrors of both man and monsters the likes of which they’ve never seen.”
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There we go! I’m really excited about this project. I learned a lot from editing the first book, and it made the second one much stronger. The early opinions on it from my beta readers have been fantastic, and I can’t wait for a larger audience to see it. At it’s heart, it’s a story about a family, not about monsters. It’s about memories, and how we chose the people who mean the most to us. It’s a tense and emotional ride, and if I’m doing my job right, it should leave you wanting more at the end.
Expect to see articles from me in the coming weeks about this and a few other things. I’m trying to come up with new content for the site rather than just offering up novice advice.
Well, except for one piece. The perennial writing advice.
Keep writing.
