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People Watching:  Voyeuristic and Evil Research

1/22/2015

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By nature, I can be a very judgmental person.  Although my empathy far exceeds my willingness to judge, and those closest to me know me as being empathetic to an almost faulty degree, the finger-pointing judge still peeks his head out from time to time just long enough to make a ruckus with the gavel.  The only thing I try not to avoid judging anymore is a literal book by its cover.  You think I’m kidding?  Have you been to Amazon lately?  Have you hung out in any of these writer’s groups on Facebook?  The ones where authors are trying to sell their self-photoshopped books to other authors.  See, I can feel judgment creeping in and I’m only one paragraph in. 

With writing, I want to try and redeem some of those hard stares I’ve given to people in the past; while I eyed you walking through the mall and made a mental note of your stonewashed jeans and mullet, or while in conversation with you it looked like I was paying attention, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the way you said that one word or how every other sentence you’d close your eyes through the whole thing like you were practicing some kind of meditative chatting.  I’d like to redeem it all by immortalizing it in my work through character development. 
During NaNoWriMo, I started a novel.  I had a character in there that my main character happened upon in a diner.  The exchange between the two was rather surreal and reminded me of something out of a David Lynch film.  The scene was short, spontaneous, and out of context.  It was the most fun I had the entire time I wrote the first twelve thousand words.  I may never finish the book, but for me that experience of giving birth to—and developing—a character was a good lesson.  The diner character wasn’t based on anyone in particular, but I suppose for me it was a small character study on lonely individuals.  The type of person that most look at as nothing more than a street post or a bush in front of a church; like soulless city decor.
I write short stories, so there’s only so much character development that can go on; however, this year will see me writing more and I plan on branching out into a series of short books (more details another time).  During these writings sessions, I plan on using my judgmental eyes to develop characters based on all the people watching and observing I’ve done over the years.  Perhaps I’ll make a hero out of that guy and his mullet.

GINORMOUS NEWS UPDATE:  Horror author, and son of the late, great Ronnie James Dio, Dan Padavona will be writing the foreword to my anthology.  Dan released his debut novel, Storberry, last year along with a two-story collection simply titled, The Island.  This year will see the release of his collaborate effort with author J. Thorn and their book Shadow Witch.  Dan is also finishing up the first few books in a post-apocalyptic series that will be released simultaneously in the next month or two.  Dan is very passionate about the craft, and I am honored that he would bless me with authoring the foreword to my book.  The book has a tentative release date set for March 2015.  It will be titled “Night as a Catalyst” and will have approximately fourteen stories in it.  The cover will be created by Ms. Abigail Larson.  Abigail’s work has been featured in galleries throughout the US and Europe including London, Paris, and Madrid.  She has an illustrative gothic style all her own that I feel will present some outstanding eye candy blanketing the pages of my work.  Please stop by and pay a visit to Dan and Abigail; sign up to their newsletters, Twitter, like them on FB…the works.

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Earning Cookies:  Realistic Literary Goal Setting

1/18/2015

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Now that you’ve heard enough about people’s resolutions and watched countless fail already, allow me to share with you my literary goals for the year 2015. 

I’m decent at making goals and sticking to them (yes, I failed NaNoWriMo…no fair reminding me.  I was caught in the middle of a move from one house to another, remember?), so long as I make them realistic; challenging, yes, but there’s no sense in filling my anxiety-filled life with more of the same on the off chance that I’ll accomplish an unrealistic goal.  A cookie is still a cookie when I'm deserving of it, so let's be real.

  On my Goodreads account I have eleven books listed as “currently reading.”  My goal is to not only finish those eleven but add 9 new fresh ones to that list and close the cover on them before next year.  For someone who has taken a bit of a novel-reading hiatus over the last handful of years, this is an accomplishment.  So far I’m done with one of the eleven (you can find my review for it coming soon at Horror Novel Reviews). 

My anthology goal:  To be out before spring.  I’m shooting for March.  It’s my first book so I may find I have unrealistic expectations concerning that.  We’ll see.  During the move I ran across four stories that had nearly 20 years of dust settled on them.  I’ve been going through them, salvaging them, and giving them a final draft.  I believe at least two of them will make the cut; however, I have somehow missed some important pages of one of the stories and I may need to do an extensive re-write if I’m to keep it.
Lastly, I would like to have written a combination of at least 20 new short stories (including flash), novels, or novellas.  Honestly, I should be setting a goal for something like 40, especially since I’m counting flash and short stories, but I’d love to be able to get that cookie, and if I reach 20 by mid year I can always keep on keepin’ on. 

How about you guys?  Any writing/reading goals set for the year?

New Update: 
Some exciting things on the horizon but I'll have to save that for another time.
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The Hiatus Has Been Slayed.

1/1/2015

2 Comments

 
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My hiatus is over.  Prepare for regular blogging once again.  I have several story ideas as well as some ideas for a series.  I will be attacking all of this very soon.  I’m pretty excited to see what this year brings. 

Thank you for your support.  Thank you for the praise, the encouragement, the time you’ve taken to read my work and especially the time you’ve taken to provide feedback; be it in person, an email, or through Goodreads and/or Amazon.  Thank you!


See ya soon!  

You could definitely call that a hiatus.  For a while there it even felt like I’d lost a little of the passion.  Call it a mixture of the move, some anxiety, and some discouragement as I watched and learned about unprofessionalism and bad published writing within the literary world, though I’m quite thankful for my experiences through all of this, in particular the discouraging ones, because they help me to learn what to do next, what to stop doing, and what to look out for. 

Today is the first day of a brand new year.  Lord willing, this will be the year my very own book will find its way to hopefully several hands.  I’ve planned a tentative and—what I feel is—a realistic date for some time in March.  I’ve picked the cover artist.  The cover concept has been drawn up, and I even found four old stories during the move written about 17 years ago that I will be giving a hefty re-drafting; at least three of which will make it within the pages of my book.  To self-publish or not is still up in the air, and hopefully I will know more about that in the next month or so.
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