I’m actually preparing myself for NaNoWriMo this year. I suppose it’s really just a coincident, but I’m creating an outline for my novel, “The Secret of Kingship”. I finished reading Robert McKee’s book, “Story”, and it has inspired me. It truly gave me a better understanding of story telling in the modern age.

Anyhow, I’ve been working on an actual outline, character dossiers, and other such stuff for a week or so now. And I’m going into this feeling very well prepared. I guess we’ll see, but I think when it comes down to it, good writing is not an accident. Good writing is planned. Maybe not down to the smallest detail, but it is planned. One of my (new) favorite quotes from McKee’s book is:

When forced to work within a strict framework the imagination is taxed to its utmost - and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom the work is likely to sprawl.

- T. S. Eliot

I think my work sprawls when it’s not planned out. My first attempt at NaNoWriMo flopped, no because I couldn’t write, but because I ran out of things to write. I think having a plan (chapters, scenes, characters, themes, subplots) ahead of time will permit me to spend the month of November actually doing what NaNoWriMo requires - producing quantity.

General | No Comments »

It seems to me that self-publishing has an awful reputation in the literary community. I think the view is that if you’re not good enough to get picked up by a major magazine or publishing house, then you’re just not worth reading.

However, we see more and more in other arts that self-publishing and promoting can break the industry barrier. And, in my opinion, the independently funded and promoted works in many ways exceed the quality of the mainstream channels.

Independent film making has taken off quite well in the past few years. Decades, probably, but I honestly don’t track the film industry. We also see more and more in the music industry that new bands break into the scene not by being ‘discovered’, but by making their art available and letting the public decide. They create the demand, and then the industry comes in later to pick them up and give them the deals they probably should have been able to get from the first.

Blogging seems to be an equivilent in the writing industry. I think we see now where more and more publishing houses are picking up popular bloggers and either publishing compilations of their blogs or offering them book deals. However, I don’t see many bloggers spitting out works of fiction or poetry.

I think it’s time for the fiction and poetry writers of the world to take those chances. There are printers who are more than happy to print anything you can afford. There are also now more and more ways of creating electronic versions of works.

So - my goal for now is to distribute as much of my work as possible. I want it out in the public eye. And if it really is worth reading, then it’ll get around. If it’s not, then I’ll keep producing and trying to make things that are worth reading.

General | No Comments »

A young lawyer joins a new firm. Shortly after, he begins to undergo some bizarre physiological changes. He loses his appitite, is unable to drink much of anything, and has a host of flu-like symptoms.

Not long after this begins, he recieves a package - no return address, no identifying marks. The post markings on it are in a foreign language and indecipherable. Inside he finds an unusual ring, pure silver, fashioned in the shape of a triangle with the relief image of folded hands inside of it.

Story Lines | No Comments »