Writing "The Vimana Incident" was a blast, and "The Linen Butterfly" will probably be a very similar sort of story, if that gives any indication.
Already, though, I'm starting to feel the need to back away from trippy sci-fi/fantasy crossovers where competing narratives of self and reality are the norm.
I just want to go back to doing more normal stories for a bit. I think I've already kind of said so but over the last few days it's been building to the point where I really need to ground myself. The fact is, stories like these take a lot out of me because they require me to confront some of my most uncomfortable intrusive thoughts, dwelling for months at a time in a headspace where pretty much everything is in doubt.
I want to open up about something: I'm the kind of person who can get runaway doubts about anything and everything if I let myself. I remember once I was cooking with eggs, and I managed to cast enough doubt on whether the eggs were real that I had to call Kobi into the room to convince me that we hadn't bought counterfeit eggs. It isn't pleasant or fun living with a mind like this. That's what severe, pathological anxiety does to you.
When my mind is already racing with these terrifying possibilities, writing these stories is a great relief, but I have to get out of that headspace now and then.
I don't want to cancel "Metroburg," which will probably be much like "The Vimana Incident" in some respects but longer; at the present time I don't feel I'm ready to take on that project though.
I'm really warming up to "Edouard and Le Mouche," which is more of a fun satire of adventure-themed period pieces than a heavy philosophical exploration into anything at all. I think after that I might be able to tackle some more adventurous prospects.
"How Stands The Glass" might be another one worth getting into. I'm liking how the project is shaping up. I'm thinking the two brothers could be named Ephram and Alexander Walsh, but I'm not sure how authentic those names are for 18th Century New England. Research time!
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Sunday, May 17, 2015
My Creative Endeavors
This blog is primarily devoted to my writing, and writing has honestly been may main creative outlet since about 2010. That year, I published "Basecraft Cirrostratus" and also wrote the first draft of my third (and yet-unpublished) novel, "One Could Do Better."
Ten years earlier, I had originally wanted to be an actor. I had been involved in community theater since 1995 and thought I could make it as a professional. I went as far as attending a high school for the performing arts, the Academy for the Arts Sciences and Technology in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. During this time I also began to experiment with writing, initially writing short plays and sonnets before attempting to collaborate with an artist in the UK on a novel (a project that later fell through, but inspired and trained me for later efforts as a novelist).
Ultimately, I began to have misgivings about how much effort it took for very little chance at success, and when I asked myself if that was something I'd like to do for the rest of my life, the answer was no. When I signed up for Richmond the American International University in London to study literature and history, it was a foregone conclusion that I wouldn't go back to the theater.
Of course, there were other factors to my decision besides the poor career prospects actors face; I was starting to explore writing, I was very much in love with several people in the UK at various times, and in truth I felt a strong, visceral attachment to the place that I never did fully understand. I spent a lot of time wandering the English cities of the north and east looking for medieval remnants and the Southwestern countryside, looking for a village that only existed in my mind. This restless wandering, driven from some part of myself I never properly understood at the time, is described in "One Could Do Better."
During that time I also became an avid photographer, and I began work on "The Goldenlea." At last, though, the old specter of career prospects raised its head again and I began to question my choice to study history. When I went back to the States in 2005, I tried to sell my photography but did poorly, and nearly stopped work on "The Goldenlea."
I took a one-year Microsoft server course at Horry-Georgetown Technical College which landed me a job at a small computer shop in Surfside, South Carolina run by a man who celebrated skilled individuals, but hated actually paying them (but must have been a huge Bush donor as he had mementos from the campaign all over his office including autographed pictures). To date that was the only job I ever got with my now-obsolete training which proved that my one attempt to learn a "marketable skill" was a complete disaster.
Shortly thereafter I landed a job in Las Vegas editing videos semi-professionally. I had made a series of short videos on YouTube including a re-dubbed version of "Voyage Dans La Lune" that ended up getting some small attention in the national press (the LA Times called it "Trippy."). I also did some videos for Italo-Swiss producer and musician Salvatore Cusato, also known as Casco (including the long-awaited official video for his 1983 hit "Cybernetic Love"). But after Vegas, the video editing gigs dried up and I found myself delivering pizzas in North Little Rock.
It was there that I really began to turn my attention fully to writing, even as I tried to focus my attention on making as much as I could without a college degree after finding the faculty at University of Arkansas Little Rock very disagreeable and belligerent. I had studied anthropology there and returned to my studies in 2010-2011, the faculty having now forgotten about how they felt about me, before relocating to Oregon.
2010 was also the year I published "Basecraft Cirrostratus," and wrote "One Could Do Better," and I began to feel like writing was something I was finally showing some promise with after years of trying to get something out the door. It also seemed to be the one medium I did well enough to make at least small achievements consistently in, where I've found only brief, fleeting achievements in nearly every area of creative expression.
2013 saw my shift from anthropology to history as an emphasis on what will soon become a degree in social science due to the wide variety of subjects I have studied in trying to find an academic discipline that didn't frustrate me too much. I finally grew tired of trying to make myself fit into whatever might pay and decided to study what I like, after so many years of fighting that decision. That year also marked a shift in my writing toward exploring Gnostic themes, science fiction, and competing narratives of identity after discovering the works of Philip K. Dick at a very difficult period in my life. While that won't be the whole of my output, and I'm going to need a break from it after I finish revisions on "The Linen Butterfly," it's a genre I intend to revisit from time to time.
And likewise with writing; it seems to be the only constant throughout the last fourteen years or so. It doesn't pay very well and it has taken me a long time to hone myself to the point where I feel confident promoting myself as a writer, but I suppose all these years of experimentation have taught me that life's too short not to study what you want. I've got a lot of water under the bridge now, but also a lot of life experience to draw on for my fiction that I didn't have when I first sat down to pen the first words of "The Goldenlea" in 2003.
Ten years earlier, I had originally wanted to be an actor. I had been involved in community theater since 1995 and thought I could make it as a professional. I went as far as attending a high school for the performing arts, the Academy for the Arts Sciences and Technology in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. During this time I also began to experiment with writing, initially writing short plays and sonnets before attempting to collaborate with an artist in the UK on a novel (a project that later fell through, but inspired and trained me for later efforts as a novelist).
Ultimately, I began to have misgivings about how much effort it took for very little chance at success, and when I asked myself if that was something I'd like to do for the rest of my life, the answer was no. When I signed up for Richmond the American International University in London to study literature and history, it was a foregone conclusion that I wouldn't go back to the theater.
Of course, there were other factors to my decision besides the poor career prospects actors face; I was starting to explore writing, I was very much in love with several people in the UK at various times, and in truth I felt a strong, visceral attachment to the place that I never did fully understand. I spent a lot of time wandering the English cities of the north and east looking for medieval remnants and the Southwestern countryside, looking for a village that only existed in my mind. This restless wandering, driven from some part of myself I never properly understood at the time, is described in "One Could Do Better."
During that time I also became an avid photographer, and I began work on "The Goldenlea." At last, though, the old specter of career prospects raised its head again and I began to question my choice to study history. When I went back to the States in 2005, I tried to sell my photography but did poorly, and nearly stopped work on "The Goldenlea."
I took a one-year Microsoft server course at Horry-Georgetown Technical College which landed me a job at a small computer shop in Surfside, South Carolina run by a man who celebrated skilled individuals, but hated actually paying them (but must have been a huge Bush donor as he had mementos from the campaign all over his office including autographed pictures). To date that was the only job I ever got with my now-obsolete training which proved that my one attempt to learn a "marketable skill" was a complete disaster.
Shortly thereafter I landed a job in Las Vegas editing videos semi-professionally. I had made a series of short videos on YouTube including a re-dubbed version of "Voyage Dans La Lune" that ended up getting some small attention in the national press (the LA Times called it "Trippy."). I also did some videos for Italo-Swiss producer and musician Salvatore Cusato, also known as Casco (including the long-awaited official video for his 1983 hit "Cybernetic Love"). But after Vegas, the video editing gigs dried up and I found myself delivering pizzas in North Little Rock.
It was there that I really began to turn my attention fully to writing, even as I tried to focus my attention on making as much as I could without a college degree after finding the faculty at University of Arkansas Little Rock very disagreeable and belligerent. I had studied anthropology there and returned to my studies in 2010-2011, the faculty having now forgotten about how they felt about me, before relocating to Oregon.
2010 was also the year I published "Basecraft Cirrostratus," and wrote "One Could Do Better," and I began to feel like writing was something I was finally showing some promise with after years of trying to get something out the door. It also seemed to be the one medium I did well enough to make at least small achievements consistently in, where I've found only brief, fleeting achievements in nearly every area of creative expression.
2013 saw my shift from anthropology to history as an emphasis on what will soon become a degree in social science due to the wide variety of subjects I have studied in trying to find an academic discipline that didn't frustrate me too much. I finally grew tired of trying to make myself fit into whatever might pay and decided to study what I like, after so many years of fighting that decision. That year also marked a shift in my writing toward exploring Gnostic themes, science fiction, and competing narratives of identity after discovering the works of Philip K. Dick at a very difficult period in my life. While that won't be the whole of my output, and I'm going to need a break from it after I finish revisions on "The Linen Butterfly," it's a genre I intend to revisit from time to time.
And likewise with writing; it seems to be the only constant throughout the last fourteen years or so. It doesn't pay very well and it has taken me a long time to hone myself to the point where I feel confident promoting myself as a writer, but I suppose all these years of experimentation have taught me that life's too short not to study what you want. I've got a lot of water under the bridge now, but also a lot of life experience to draw on for my fiction that I didn't have when I first sat down to pen the first words of "The Goldenlea" in 2003.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Latest Review/Errata
First of all, I'd like to say to whoever did the anonymous review of "The Vimana Incident" posted on its Furplanet order page, thank you for your honesty and I would love to talk to you in detail about how I might have improved it. I'm making a serious effort to improve myself as a writer and reaching out to anyone willing to call out the flaws in my work.
I know this review was a particularly honest one because these were things I was concerned about, but had a hard time fixing. This was my attempt at writing the best story I could with my current abilities but it shows that I'm still lacking.
Lt. Aksakova's backstory is one I particularly regret being stumped on how to develop more because she is an interesting character, being a female officer, the one Soviet member of the crew, and asexual. She's the odd one out in so many ways and I wanted to tell more about her, but I was struggling with pacing and was afraid it would slow the book down. A good writer should know how to fit something like that without breaking pace, though, and I'm embarrassed to say it's one of the things I still haven't figured out.
This also means I didn't quite succeed in what I set out to do, which was to write a book with all of the best qualities of a Philip K. Dick novel but none of its drawbacks. Instead, I've got ideas, and those ideas are good, but I'm hitting a wall when it comes to developing them and setting a steady pace. I've seen that exact same critique of Dick.
I don't want to be just a carbon copy of him; I want to be better and I have a clear set of objectives on how to do that. I just need someone who has actually read my work to help me with a bit of advice.
If the writer of that review is reading this, please get in touch. PM me or send me an e-mail (my first name_my last name at yahoo dot com) and let's talk writing.
Also, one major Errata I MUST acknowledge before someone calls me out on it: In the acknowledgments I described Johnathan Lethem as an "editor" when what I intended to say was "award-winning writer and one of the editors of Philip K. Dick's Exegesis" but overlooked the passage in my revisions. My sincerest apologies to Dr. Lethem, this was not intended as a slight but was an innocent oversight on my part.
Sunday, April 12, 2015
"The Vimana Incident" Now Available From Fusselschwarm!
My readers in the EU will be happy to know that "The Vimana Incident" is now available from Fusselschwarm!
I missed the announcement, as it has apparently been available for a little while now, but I thought I'd go ahead and mention it.
You can purchase your copy here:
http://www.maennerschwarm.de/Laden/htdocs/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=67&Itemid=121#Novels
Or you can stop by the Fusselschwarm table at any of the conventions or book fairs they attend. Also, be sure to check out @fusselschwarm on Twitter.
I missed the announcement, as it has apparently been available for a little while now, but I thought I'd go ahead and mention it.
You can purchase your copy here:
http://www.maennerschwarm.de/Laden/htdocs/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=67&Itemid=121#Novels
Or you can stop by the Fusselschwarm table at any of the conventions or book fairs they attend. Also, be sure to check out @fusselschwarm on Twitter.
Sunday, April 5, 2015
Where I Am As An Author
As you probably know if you've read the posts in this blog so far, I am a small press author and I don't make a whole lot off my writing. It started out as something of a hobby, writing from within the furry community where making a living off of any sort of work is unlikely; it's a small, mostly Interned-based community that enjoys stories, art, and other media involving anthropomorphic animal stories and although sexual material is definitely out there, non-sexual stories and art still sell decently well.
The first book I published (also the first manuscript of any sort I actually sold copies of) was a dieselpunk action romance called "Basecraft Cirrostratus," and yes, it did play somewhat to the sexual aspect of things. I've been told by a few non-furry readers, though, that aside from the sex it's actually a decent early attempt at a story, kind of in the vein of "The Rocketeer" and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" in a dystopian setting inspired by the neoliberal crony capitalism and dominionist politics of the 2000s. As such, it was hardly "porn" so much as an adventure story with erotic scenes.
It got decent reviews, and was greeted enthusiastically enough that I began to think that maybe I would eventually have what it took to support myself as an author. I was called out on being too brief and breezy in my pacing, sort of the opposite of what you hear about amateur authors most of the time. There were also minor issues with forced dialog and a plot just a little too fraught with convenient coincidences (though I did lampshade it somewhat in the sequel by having all the loose ends from the first book come back to haunt the protagonists). But after a while, sales slowed and I decided to put something else out.
The first book I published (also the first manuscript of any sort I actually sold copies of) was a dieselpunk action romance called "Basecraft Cirrostratus," and yes, it did play somewhat to the sexual aspect of things. I've been told by a few non-furry readers, though, that aside from the sex it's actually a decent early attempt at a story, kind of in the vein of "The Rocketeer" and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" in a dystopian setting inspired by the neoliberal crony capitalism and dominionist politics of the 2000s. As such, it was hardly "porn" so much as an adventure story with erotic scenes.
It got decent reviews, and was greeted enthusiastically enough that I began to think that maybe I would eventually have what it took to support myself as an author. I was called out on being too brief and breezy in my pacing, sort of the opposite of what you hear about amateur authors most of the time. There were also minor issues with forced dialog and a plot just a little too fraught with convenient coincidences (though I did lampshade it somewhat in the sequel by having all the loose ends from the first book come back to haunt the protagonists). But after a while, sales slowed and I decided to put something else out.
Friday, March 20, 2015
Finished Winter Term
At 11:30, I submitted my last assignment for the term, a 6-page essay assigned in lieu of an exam.
I now have the next ten days off. I'm going to probably be spending that time resting because in all honesty, I'm having a really hard time with anxiety right now. I'm so close to finishing my senior year. I just want it to be over.
It's not that the work is that hard either; for a student like me it's easy work. But for one thing, commuting on public transport is something I find intensely draining and stressful, and I've been having to do that for the whole time I've been at PSU which has slowed my recovery.
For another thing, I know this is going to be an intense term in Spring because my university has a thing called senior capstone which essentially requires a practical application of what you've learned. I'll be working with medieval manuscripts and early printed books in the Multnomah County Library's special collections, which is cool as all hell, but I've got to juggle that and running to campus about half a mile away; even with street car service in the area, it's going to be rough.
Just ten more weeks of it though, then I have a gap year coming up which hopefully I'll be able to support myself through. If I can get things squared away by graduation I may be able to swing it though, in which case I'll finally have the time to fully recover from the last few years of living on the ragged edge of pretty much everything.
I had someone suggest living off the royalties to my books... I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
I now have the next ten days off. I'm going to probably be spending that time resting because in all honesty, I'm having a really hard time with anxiety right now. I'm so close to finishing my senior year. I just want it to be over.
It's not that the work is that hard either; for a student like me it's easy work. But for one thing, commuting on public transport is something I find intensely draining and stressful, and I've been having to do that for the whole time I've been at PSU which has slowed my recovery.
For another thing, I know this is going to be an intense term in Spring because my university has a thing called senior capstone which essentially requires a practical application of what you've learned. I'll be working with medieval manuscripts and early printed books in the Multnomah County Library's special collections, which is cool as all hell, but I've got to juggle that and running to campus about half a mile away; even with street car service in the area, it's going to be rough.
Just ten more weeks of it though, then I have a gap year coming up which hopefully I'll be able to support myself through. If I can get things squared away by graduation I may be able to swing it though, in which case I'll finally have the time to fully recover from the last few years of living on the ragged edge of pretty much everything.
I had someone suggest living off the royalties to my books... I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Saturday, March 7, 2015
"The Vimana Incident" E-Book Now Available!
I got a number of requests from friends who wanted to be notified when this book was out as an e-book, and now I'm pleased to announce that it has been released from Bad Dog Books!
http://baddogbooks.com/?product=the-vimana-incident
http://baddogbooks.com/?product=the-vimana-incident
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