To be or not to... What was the question?

Hey Folks. Just like most writers, I am always trying to learn more about the craft and improve my writing. As a part of that I've subscribed to several newsletters from different authors.

Today I got one from Larry Brooks that I think EVERY writer should read. It's probably the most concise stating of these simple principles that I've ran across. So please head over and check out "The Most Important Question(s) in Storytelling and the Ensuing Two Questions That Allow You to Answer" by Larry Brooks. And get on his mailing list too. He's a bit of a pompous, arrogant bugger at times, but the guy knows his stuff.

And another one more geared at science fiction and fantasy writers out there is David Farland's Daily Kick in the Pants. Good stuff that only gets sent to your email.

Hooray for Steampunk!

So you've probably heard me mention Steampunk before. I love it! its great fun and class and grit all rolled into one. But being an emerging concept I think I'd be remiss if I didn't try and put together my views on what Steampunk is.

Plus I cant very well have you all be my little Steampunk minions if you don't know what it is. ;-)

So if you go by the all knowing ever infallible Wiki, Steampunk is "a sub-genre of science fiction and speculative fiction, frequently featuring elements of fantasy, that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s."

Accurate, but dry. Steampunk to me is taking the simple complexity of steam and clockwork power and mixing it with the capabilities of our technology and even beyond. It's a genre of fiction, yes. I very much enjoy writing in this genre, in fact I'm developing a serial story concept based on a Steampunk time traveler. But boy is Steampunk more than that.

What started as some eccentric writings in the 80's has exploded into the world to take on not only literature, but art, music, fashion, and technology. One of my favorite bits about this Steampunk movement is the attitude of do it yourself. There are people out there who have made so many things Steampunk its crazy! a lot of it is pretty rough shod I'll grant you, but some of it is exquisite craftsmanship and imagination of the highest caliber.

So if you want to look at this a bit more here's a few links I really enjoy that you might find entertaining. Heck if nothing else it could inspire you to write a piece on those crazy nut jobs in top hats. ;-)

1. The Steampunk Workshop This is the place I first found the name for this style I've loved for decades.

2. Girl Genius This is a great web comic that is ALL Steampunk. Brass and gears and mad science all delivered with great art and humor. I check it out every day it updates.

3. Abney Park Holy cow, I can't tell you how much I enjoy this band! My two Favorites by them are Sleep Isabella and Herr Drosselmeyer's Doll. I listen to these guys incessantly lately as I'm writing.

4. Datamancer Another great tinkerer with an amazing knack for taking things modern and giving them an antique elegance and mystique.

5. Steampunk Emporium As soon as I get a few bucks to spare I am seriously buying a whole getup from here.

6. A Gentleman's Duel This has got to be the funniest thing I've seen Steampunk.

7. Steampunk Literature This is a list of books that fit in Steampunk. I haven't read most of them but the classics I definitely have and a few of the newer titles. Needless to say I'm working on adding my own work to this list. ;-)

8. Dr. Steel No Steampunk list would be complete without a mad scientist in the mix. His music is OK but I love his videos on YouTube.

Obviously this isn't a complete list of all things Steampunk. Heck, it's still such a fluid concept that one person's idea of Steampuink can be completely different from another person's.

So what's your take on it? Do you know Steampunk and have something to add? Whats your impression of it if you've just found it? Any other intriguing sub-cultures you know of? Speak up in the comments. :-)

Weird Yet Wonderful

I ran across this the other day and it just had to be shared. Its fun, interesting, and slightly disturbing all at once. Just as I think my writing should be.

So enjoy Brad W. Fosters's Corner of the Weird

If you know of something fun, odd, or eccentric please post it in comments! I love finding new gems of insanity. :-D

Good Medicine

With all the glamor and glitz its hard to tell a good bad guy anymore. Vampires are now diamond encrusted lovers, assassins are poor unfortunates who lose their memory, and pirates are silver-tongued confused souls who really are misunderstood. Really.

Now don't get me wrong I love these shows too. But sometimes its just nice to hearken back to the good old days when vampires burnt to ash in the sun, assassins were cold-hearted killers, and pirates were ne'er-do-well scallywags who thought of little more than the next bit of gold and drop of rum.

Enter Geoffery Armitage Ffolkes. Pirate, assassin, and scallywag extraordinaire.

Now granted so far I have only read the first few chapters, but I love this character. He's everything a pirate should be and the writing is a wonderfully smooth throwback to the 17th century.

Check it out and read the first few chapters for free.

Ffolkes' Medicine: The Adventures of Geoffery Armitage Ffolkes begin by B. R. Stateham

Good Stuff.

One of my favorite authors right now is Brandon Sanderson. If you don't know who that is I seriously suggest you go buy or borrow his book Mistborn. Its a great epic fantasy. He's also been chosen to finish the Wheel of Time series for the late Robert Jordan.

He's a hero of mine I guess you could say. Hes imaginative, creative, has the same religious background as me, and he's a bloody good writer! The other day I found something great on his website that I wanted to share with all you speculative fiction writers out there. He has teamed up with Dan Wells and Howard Tayler to do a podcast called Writing Excuses.

It's great! I've listened to quite a few different podcasts on writing and by far this is the best one I've found for speculative fiction. These guys know what they're talking about, they're from different genres of spec fic so you get different takes on everything, and they have fun!
Go check 'em out! They've inspired me on a number of things and given me different ideas on how to do things that I can't wait to use.

The site is www.writingexcuses.com and for even more fun they end each podcast with a writing prompt to get ya moving if your having a stall day.

The Proof is in the Puddin'

OK folks here we go. The year has officially begun. Why you may ask? Did I not see the fireworks, hear the Newscasts and observe as the media as a whole pounced on the fact a new decade has begun?

Well of course I did. But now the year truly begins for me as a writer. I have just now, after hours of surfing different resource sites on the web, Submitted my first story of the year. HUZZAH!

The last few days I have been scribbling like mad on several new stories working on fleshing them out to a writable state. But I got tired of waiting! I want to see those words in print! So taking a deep breath I scoured the bottom of my hard drive and pulled out an old story that once got a kind rejection slip, actually looked at the story with fresh eyes and saw what the editor was talking about! The story is good but needed a little loving craft work.

So after a couple hours reworking and doing everything I can, it's done. Or at least as done as I can get it with my current skills. So off it goes to another pair of scrutinizing eyes to see if its good enough for their magazine.

Here's hoping. I'll know in the next 4-8 weeks whether this baby has a new home --and I have a nice check-- or if it got me another rejection slip and one step closer to getting it in print. And from now on I'm gonna do my darnedest to either submit one story or finish one rough draft every week!

Oh no, not the numbers game!

Alright so if you didn’t gather from my first post I am a writer of speculative fiction. Mainly I stick in SciFi and Fantasy--what I like to call Fanta-Sci-- but I do meddle in a little horror too. Right now I haven’t been published…Yet.

And that right there is one of the reasons I know I will eventually be published. A lot of things go into it. Anybody can write. And if your writing purely for your own enjoyment or to hand down stories to your kids in a dusty shoebox one day, GREAT! Your done. Write away as you are now and your good. But if your looking to actually get your words out in front of people then more than likely you have some work to do. First you’ve got to learn about the bones of the story, then how to fit all those pieces together with words, and then you have to edit it all so the ‘T’s are crossed and the ‘I’s are dotted and all that lovely punctuation is in its proper place. Fine any decent writing course or school will get you those eventually.

But then there’s the thing that turns a writer into an author. Sending it out. It scares the living bajeebus out of you. Or at least it does me. You wrap up your nice new baby and send it out to the dark mysterious land of editors. Congratulations you’ve just sent out your first story.

Then, after a few weeks or months, in comes a familiar beige envelope with their response. And guess what. It’s more than likely gonna say something akin to a soda pop cap. Sorry, Please play again. YAY! Now you’re an experienced writer. And you can do one of two things with your baby here. Either put it safely back in its drawer-- where no more unkind eyes will ever dare defile its splendor-- or you can get real, get serious, and get it back out there in the numbers game.

Believe me I hate to say that. I’ve developed a true hate for the numbers game as a whole, thanks in no small part to playing the numbers game door to door lugging a two ton vacuum cleaner along for the ride. But a cad’s a cad and if you want to be published you gotta play the game. Right now I have 3 frames in my office. One is full. It has my first rejection slip. The next will soon be filled with my first acceptance letter and a photocopy of a, hopefully large, very cashed check. And once that’s filled the last will hold my latest acceptance letter of many to come in my career. Hopefully they both get filled this year. I can't really control that. But what I can control is the fact that I’m going to be annoying editors as much as I can this year with as many good stories as I can pump out.

I’ll keep you posted.

Let the madness commence!

Welcome one and all to , what I hope will be, a fun and educational little place to park your mouse.

As a matter of forewarning I am crazy! Not so much the bouncing-off-the-walls mad chuckling sort of crazy as much as a Willie Wonka distorted-view-of-the-world sort of crazy. But don't rule out the occasional mad chuckle. :mwa ha ha::

Mainly I'm going to bring you the best I can about writing speculative fiction and the market and culture surrounding it. But like I said I am crazy and easily distract... oh shiny thing.

So be prepared because I'm liable to go from something on writing and story craft one day to jabbering about the latest drop dead gorgeous video game the next with a bit of rambling about kids and family life thrown in for good measure.

So come along and be careful of the gremlins. They do love to mangle words so.