Winter Has Come

No this isn’t about Game of Thrones but it is about a book. If you follow the blog, or my Twitter, or my Facebook Page, or even my Pinterest feed., you know that “January” was published in the Hazard Yet Forward charity anthology last week. Now I gave you the sales pitch already, but I wanted to give more a reason why I chose this story for this anthology.

You see, charity anthologies are not common. Simply put, no one makes money on them. Which is expected, as it is a charity. But, especially in the current economy, it’s not uncommon to for writers to pass on such projects. For some, a story sale means they get to go pick something at the store other than the ingredients for tuna noodle casserole.

But it is also the time do what you can to help others, even in the smallest way, when ever you can.

A lot of people don’t realize the expenses one can accumulate in just a short time if they have a medical crisis. After it was all and said and done, before insurance was factored in, my liver transplant cost around $2,000,000 dollars, give or take a few hundred thousand. I won’t go into what the insurance did cover, because that was, and still is a debacle. But still, millions of dollars, which is a price that I think Stephen King would go, “Holy Hell!” when he saw the bill. I also had a brother-in-law that passed away from brain cancer. I saw how much can be asked of the one diagnosed and the family.

If contributing a story can help in the smallest way, How could I not knowing worse case scenarios.

But why “January?”

For those that haven’t been with the journey of this story, I wrote this for the ill-fated Dead Bells anthology before my transplant. The anthology fell through about a year and a half later and I have searched for a home for it since. I don’t want to give too much away from the story, but the inspiration came from my nephew, Jack, when he was a quite little and I saw what he learned, what he didn’t, and what he discovered on his own. I reflected on my childhood and how I learned, didn’t learn or discovered on my own some of those things. With a child protagonist all alone, I wondered how much she could survive. Definitely a stark interpretation of the theme “hazard, yet forward.”

In a way, I saw a synergy between the theme of the story and the impetus of the anthology. Charity is a hard thing to come by these days. We have to teach charity to others because it is not a natural tendency. People, especially the normal healthy people, don’t know the stress of dealing with a major health issues. Hopefully, the existence of this anthology will not only help a good friend, and good writer, Donna Munro, but also help educate more on these two subjects.

I would mean a lot to me, the 75 other writers, and Donna and her family if picked up a copy of Hazard Yet Forward on Kindle for $9.99.

If you want to check out more about the anthology and the contributors, visit the anthology website.

Hazard Yet Forward Releasing August 7th

Hazard Yet Forward is a  charity anthology to help a fellow writer and Seton Hill Writing Popular Fiction graduate, Donna Munro, as she kicks breast cancer’s ass. This is anthology is a huge effort, with over 70 authors and over 70 stories totaling over 700 hundred pages of fiction. They’re examples of all genres: from Romance to Horror to Mystery to Fantasy. So there is something for everyone.

As a charity anthology, all the stories were donated. We all care about Donna and hope this helps her with everything that is ahead of her. All money that the anthology makes will go directly to helping Donna with her medical expenses. Having a brother-in-law that passed away from brain cancer and my liver transplant, I know how fast those bills start to get out of hand, even with health insurance.

A Massive Effect On Things

While I will be talking about the video game, that isn’t what the whole post is about. But if that is all you want to read about, skip to the last paragraph.

Since the transplant, it seems like every few months I do one of these posts where I’m all “Hey, here is what I’m doing now–my big plan for myself–and disregard that other one I wrote, or the ones before that.” It’s a crappy feeling, because I’m not one to stop on a goal. But things have been harder since the operation. And a lot of it is from a feeling of just drifting. Most of that is cause I’ve never been able to really start a new living pattern.

Doctors aren’t helping with the mysterious problems with my legs, because of that I don’t feel comfortable driving the car and know that I couldn’t even handle even a desk job. Simple things that everyone takes for granted, but are the crux of living, socializing, and figuring out how you will go about your day. I’ve been filling my time with Eldritch Thoughts and The Non-Horror Reader Survey. But I’m not getting much out of it. It is just a form of productive time wasting. I’ve tried to get back to my writing, but I think I can understand how any writer has something traumatic happen and then they can’t write afterwards.

The best way to think of it is that before the event, you are driving along a flat road, then the engine fails. After that you have to shift into neutral and push till you get to the nearest mechanic or leave it on the side of the road and walk to get a tow. I tried pushing for a while, but the past two years there have been so many things, mostly medically related, that have made that road harder to navigate. So I’ve decided to pull over to the shoulder and walk my way to the mechanic.

By mechanic, I’m talking about going back to Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction program and, as they most of us M.A. alums are calling it, get the “F.” What I’m hoping is that an imposed structure will kickstart my writing again. When I was in the program before, it did that for me. I never thought I would write a novel and I did. Granted, it is not a great one, but half the battle is getting to that end point in a rough draft, most people never make it that far. This time, since I already have the M.A., it will be only a short time in the program, so I’ll be working on either a collection of stories or a novella. I really want to use the time to work on Lucin City and build it up more before I finish Scavenger. If I go with the story collection, it will also be an experiment related to my “Project 10″ idea. If I do the novella, it will most likely be the story I started back at Simon’s Rock that is set before Scavenger. But I have a back up, if that doesn’t fly, of returning to Nostrildamus. I had wanted something ready to capitalize on 2012, but when you think about it, either the doomsayers are right and it would be pointless to publish it now or they are wrong and they will find some other obscure prophesy I can make fun of them for.

But I will have time on my walk to the mechanic–I’m going to beat this metaphor to death, just so you know–but Eldritch Thoughts and Non-Horror Reader Survey aren’t major parts of what I have planned. I’m not going to put them on hold, but at the end of the month they will be more things I do if the inspiration hits. I’m doing this now because I know by the time  I start back at Seton Hill, they just can’t get the same attention I would need to give them. Also, because I have another project that I was asked to participate in that will be less time consuming, but equally fun, coming up. If you have been watching my Twitter feed lately, there has been a lot more talk of TV there. I’m not going to give out too much now except that it will involve television. So keep an eye out here. Most of the details are set, a few things are still being discussed, but hopefully it will start in early March.

March is also the month that Mass Effect 3 is released. For those that either know me of have followed my site for a while know, I’m a huge Star Wars fan. Mass Effect is possible one of the best examples of multi-media storytelling that Star Wars really pioneered over they years. Mass Effect in not just the video games, but books and comics and who knows what the future will hold. But more importantly, it is an amazing story. And since it is a great story, I’ve decided that as soon as my Women In Horror Month posts over at NHRS are finished, I’m going to go through the whole story–books, comics, and games–before I start on Mass Effect 3 when it releases. I haven’t decided if there will be posts related to it on here. But I wanted to forewarn of a potential massive geek-plosion soon here.

And I Say, “Hey, What’s Going On?”

Boy, aren’t we all happy no one plays that song anymore.

Just wanted to update you all on a few things. First, I’m currently a slush reader for Niteblade Magazine. I have always had interest in the publishing and editing side of writing, and decided to work from the ground up. It’s been an enlightening experience so far. As I go through the submissions, I keep wondering about the current way publishing is working. I can’t make any definite designs till I see how an issue I helped with is published. And anything I think will be too long to post here, so I will most likely have a post about it in the future.

Next, I just got news that I will be a panelist at Anthology 2011. I’ll be on two panels: one on the use of myth, religion, and folklore in fiction; the other is on MFA programs. If you are a speculative fiction writer or fan, and you have some free time in November, you will want to check it out. It is shaping up to be a great start to a new con.

Finally, I’m going through all my notes and starting a massive writing war strategy. I have a lot of story ideas that are going to be connected. So, what I’m doing is trying to map out as far ahead as I can on all of them instead of going book by book, story by story. While I’m doing that, I’m going through my backlog of half-starts and rough drafts and cleaning them up. I know not much else will get out this year, but I want to try for multiple acceptances next year. While I do that next year, I hope to have a novel in the works to have ready to start going out as soon as I can to use the publication momentum to the fullest effect.

I’m hoping to get recordings of the panels in November and post them here. If not I’ll still give rundowns of the events, especially the panels, for you all.

Pulled in Different Directions

A great ability of my mind is to have many trains of thought going at once. It helps me solve problems faster and recall ideas easier. Of course I still suck at multi tasking, but multi-thinking I’m an ace. As much of strength it is, it’s a flaw at times too. Usually when each train of thought is a different story that I want to write. This is the usual “writer’s block” I hit. And I have hit it recently.

I was working on the origin story of Nostrildamus, I wrote a scene I had in my head. But it didn’t really lead anywhere. I tried to think up a prophecy to base a story around and all the ones I came up with were silly. Not silly goofy, but the kind that would resurrect Graham Chapman in his Colonel outfit and berate me.

As I was working on that, the plot line for the next origin story was brewing in my head. This is for my space opera idea. Ideas for new cultures and characters and the background has been forming as I try to write Nostrildamus. Two very different stories that really don’t help one another in the creation phase.

In the middle of all that, I heard about an upcoming call for a new anthology. The theme behind it fit with a story I started working on for a tentative chap book offer back in ’09. I wasn’t able to pounce that since it wasn’t long after that my health went down hill fast. I put the two origin stories on hold to try and get back to this, cause it was a Lucin City story and I wanted to get back to that setting, maybe get inspired to go back to my M.A. Thesis, clean it up, and send it out. I wrote three opening scenes till I felt like I got it right. The others just felt generic. But I have the problem of thinking that if I continue this story it’s just going to seem like a Clive Barker imitation. Granted, the idea I had for the chapbook was to write three stories inspired by the three horror writers I love most: Barker, Poe, and Lovecraft. So, now I’m wondering if that was step too far as I really haven’t established my style enough to be able to pull off that task.

Among all of that, I’m still working on Eldritch Thoughts and The Non-Horror Reader Survey. Both take up a good chunk of time during the week. I’m wondering if NHRS is to much to do by myself and if I need to try and find people to help me out with it or just scrap it entirely. I’m sticking with ET as it is doing better than I thought and it does have a growing audience.

I’m even going to start going to only one post a week here just to give myself more time to write fiction. I can do two, but my fiction output lagged severely for the few months I did that.

I just have so many things to do, and I get pulled every which way, but for most of them it’s hard to see the inspiration to pick one over the other. I’ve been out of the publishing game for over a year and a half now, so I have nothing to promote myself with anymore. I’m just a normal, everyday blogger these days to anyone new that comes across the site. I’m just looking for that one thing that will just energize me and drive me to write and get myself back into a roll like I was before the transplant. It has be arduous trying to recover, writing-wise, from that.