How is the writing thing going?

February of this year is when I finally embraced making writing a major part of my day to day existence.  I had been writing my whole life as a fun hobby and for it’s therapeutic implications but it was time to work, to be better, and to change the world.  I told all of my friends, “I’m getting serious about this thing.”  I accepted I was a baby, a student, a beginner and wore that badge proudly.  I needed to learn from the masters, harness the craft, deal with personal anxiety, figure out what my philosophy toward this new monster would be, and most of all, I needed to always try to be better.  My behavior changed in that I started writing and recording ALL the time.  That was six months ago.  Now I get asked the same question constantly, “How is the writing going?”

The short answer – “Great! Fun! I’m grateful to have reassurance that this is indeed what I am most passionate about.  Things are forever changing.  I’m learning so much, exploring everything freely, and dissolving all limitation.  I’m doing it.”

The long answer -

Things are going fantastic!

At first my intention was to sit in the wings and observe.  I’d watch the blogs of J.C. Hutchins, Scott Sigler, Mur Lafferty and all the other influential authors in the podcast novel space.  All the while I’d work on my masterpiece and blow them all out of the water when it was ready.  After a very short while I figured out this was not going to work.  I was sitting in my hobbit hole scribbling but no one was reading it and I wasn’t learning anything about the craft like I wanted.  So I started searching for low-risk ways of exposure.  This is where the 100 word stories podcast came in and GreatHites.  Weekly contests where people voted for fun on the stories and your story was syndicated in a podcast.  It was simple: if people didn’t like your story they didn’t vote for you, done.  No one screamed at you and no one told you it sucked, it was bliss but also not enough to move forward.

I did that for a while and I started to educate myself more about the writing industry.  I subscribed to Writer’s Digest and every podcast I could find about getting better at this writing thing.

So that is where it started and things evolved way faster than I thought from there.

So, where are we now?

I think an itemized list will be more effective than a long hunk of wordy prose.

• I write for the 100 word stories podcast every week.  Those are the 100 word stories you see posted here all the time.

• I write for GreatHites as much as I can.

• I have two stories being published in the GreatHites Podiobooks Anthology.  The Reconstruction and Children of the Garden Wars. (still need to edit those for you Jeff, sorry for the delay.)

• I got into my first REAL writing group that Justin Lowmaster (SpaceTurtle) got me into.  They are a wonderful group of folks and I love interacting with people who nerd out about this stuff as much as I do.

• Give Blood and Thanks is officially a podcast now and is in itunes and all that.  It will hit 17,000 words very soon and be in official novella territory.

• I plunged headfirst into the social media space to rub shoulders and learn from these people I thought I would covet forever.  They are all supportive and great.  I have Twitter and Facebook for now.

• I have a ton of ideas I’m working on and new ones crop up constantly.  I have enough material right now to be locked in a room for about four years and write a few books.

• I’m learning the value of 100% transparency.  What I do that a lot of authors (can I say that yet?) don’t is, I post everything!  I post the ugly draft that I read from with all the typos, crumby syntax, constant switching of tenses, and even spelling errors.  If things get pointed out to me I go back and fix it, but I don’t ever dwell too long.  I’m not submitting to magazines, I’m not agent hunting, I’m not submitting to publishers, I’m just learning and sharing with all of you.  I don’t want to be on this journey alone.  I want my friends to know what is going on and the world to watch me grow up.

• I’m confident that I will be a novelist when the time is right.  Actually, the time will be right in November.  I will be participating in my first official NanoWriMo this year.  I’m extremely excited about it and there is a lot of planning I have yet to do if I am going to reach the 50,000 word finish line in just one month.

I think that covers all the bases for now but things are forever changing in this world so who knows what the next day, week, or month will bring.

Thank you all for your constant supportive words and encouragement.  That stuff really means a lot, truly.

That is how the writing thing is going. – Danny

Character Sketch to Flash Fic – Brandon Garcia

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I pulled another cassette from the old box.  Things were beginning to go in slow motion for me now during these listening sessions.  I imagined the classical ambient musical score at the end of a war film.  The brave solider you fell in love with getting killed in a hail of gunfire.  Red mist exploding from each new bullet hole as the actor convulses from the supposed inertia of it all and you living that split second of life in minutes on film.

Bach’s Cello Suite One in G major suites me just fine.  I hear it, as my hand clutches the plastic  tape of the blind man.  Each quick pull of the cello’s bow resonates within me and I slow my breathing.  I rub my thumb on  the pattern of scratches in the plastic.  None of these tapes have numbers, just a series of scored  hash marks to indicate their order in the sequence.  I put on my headphones and push play.  Bach fades out and the black curtain descends as the blind man once again narrates our life.

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100 Words – They are little people, not midgets.

Weekly Challenge #163 – Death by Pineapple, Revenge shall be mine, failed Wolfram Alpha queries.

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We are little people.

My Father never hesitated to point out the things we weren’t capable of.

The constant mental abuse battered against my Mother’s mental ramparts.

She might be a small midget, but her pride was as large as a full grown man.

Smuggling a syringe from her work, she would make him a special Hawaiian pizza that night.

I typed the word ‘arsenic’ into the WolframAlpha frame work after we got back from Dad’s funeral.

No results were returned about it killing anyone.

—————————————————————-

Danny says –

1) I’ll record the audio for this story later today.

2) Give Blood and Thanks is postponed until tomorrow night.

3) Working on a REALLY cool story that I need to get finished up for GreatHites.

4) I’m going to do NanoWriMo this year.  So the time  has come for me to kick around ideas and start outlining.  Click the link to learn more about NanoWriMo.

5) I’ve got so much crap in the hopper right now it is disgusting.  I need to get the word count up and that is all there is to it.

6) I love you guys

Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 8 and 9

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Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 8 and 9 – Download PDF

Chapter 8:  A Thanksgiving Remembered.

A neon Burger King sign illuminated the brown shuffling figure that was Remy.  He smacked his lips at the sight of a discarded Whopper in the parking lot.  Picking it up, he put it under his filthy rags of clothes and set out to find a location to eat.  A place where he would be hidden and out of sight.

The burger meat was cold, the bun stale, and the cheese hard.  Surprisingly he didn’t have to pick off any insects.  Usually, depending on how long the food was on the ground, the ants always attacked first,  then the bees set to work, and if it was a  substantial piece of organic protein, the maggots would soon take up residency.  Remy was only forced to pick off maggots one time, before he knew the ins and outs of being a condemned person.  It was right after she took everything and changed the locks on the doors.  His drinking drove them away, it drove everyone away.  He had no where to go but the gutter, and there he stayed, just like he deserved.
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Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 6 and 7

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Give Blood and Thanks: Chapter 6 and 7 – Download PDF

Chapter 6:  Hoooooooooot Pockeeeeeeeeeeet

“Record setting temperatures are expected in the City this week with humidity levels in the forties.  Community weather gurus are urging people to keep hydrated and stay indoors.  More on that after the break.”

Remy watched the TV through the rusty steel mesh outside Smitty’s front window display.  The microwave hadn’t produced a damn thing in two days and he was starving.  He opened the windowed door nearly every ten minutes and kept getting the same empty disappointment.  Under normal circumstances he would be gathering up cans, or holding his “will work for food sign” on some street corner, but it was just too damn hot to be in the direct sun.  He held onto hope the microwave would produce again, even tried to leave it alone for a few and come back to it, hoping for another Breakfast Dinner.  Looks like his Guardian Angel has moved on to another lost soul, back to the one man show.

The sign on the door said Smitty would be back at 1:30, said he was, “out to lunch.”  That fat-fuck was constantly eating and living chubby off the misfortune of others.  People from all walks of life could stumble in his store and get pennies on the dollar worth for wedding rings, watches, stolen goods or any electronics, Smitty didn’t care, he took it all.  If the cops collected the inventory lists of all the house robberies this month, guaranteed, half of that stuff was at Smitty’s dingy Swap Meet.  Remy heard the slow clinking of metal approaching from around the block.
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