Skip to main content

Being Free Within Genre

Hello Readers!

Sorry I have been away.  Last week was sort of...well...not great.  But I did get a little bit of work done.

I am in the process of typing up Act I.  I have typed up chapter one so far.  As I type up Act I, I have some goals I want to hit:
  • Delete all of the other POVs except for one of them.  I was attempting to do a multiple POV thing, and I didn't like it, and so I have decided to do it from a single POV.  I know this means that I am going to be deleting like, half of what I have hand written, but that's how writing goes sometimes.  And overall, I think it will help my book be better.

  • Change one of my characters from a mystical/fantasy type character to more of a mortal psychic character.  My character needs to be "gifted" but she was feeling a little too deus ex machina for my taste, so I'm tweaking her a bit.

This doesn't seem like a tremendous amount of work, but I'm not quite ready to do big edits yet.  I'm just typing up what I have written, and making it a little easier as I start writing Act II.

As far as what I am writing right now, I am working on a short story.  The deadline for submission is February 1st, so I have some time to make it a good one. I'm having fun with it. 

I'm really writing with pride for one of the first times in a long time.  I've always been kind of a closet horror writer, writing literary fiction with some horror themes kinda snuck in, but now I am openly writing horror, I'm submitting to horror magazines/journals.  I'm officially joining the Horror Writers Association next year. It's a very freeing feeling.  When I was younger, I thought that writing within a genre would be too constricting, too controlling, but I've found it to be the opposite. 

And I am freaking loving it.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Book Review: The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

Okay there are so many places I want to take this post, and I'm not sure where I want to start, so I'll just start with cover art and a quick summary of the book: This story focuses on the adventures of 5 Americans on an uncharted island.  It starts during the American Civil War, where 5 northern prisoners of war decide to escape by hijacking an air balloon. After flying through a storm for several days, they finally land on some unknown island. They name it "Lincoln Island" as tribute to their president, Abraham Lincoln. The five are able to sustain themselves on the island, producing fire, pottery, bricks, nitroglycerin (!), iron, an electric telegraph (!) a cliff side home, and even a seaworthy ship. Throughout their time on the island, there seems to be a deus ex machina at work, delivering chests of goods and rescuing them when in danger. Eventually, they find out the secret of the island and the gifts. Captain Nemo.  Yes, that Captain Nemo from 20,000...

Deep Waters and Deep Writing

Get ready folks, this is gonna be kind of a long one. Also, for those who only prefer to read about my writing and not so much my political and spiritual life, scroll down.  I'll get there eventually. So I've been thinking a lot about water lately.  My dreams have been full of it, I've been drinking a lot of it, and since it's January in Oregon, there's just a lot of it around. Water has a lot of symbolism. America's new President was sworn in earlier this week and as it was happening, it started to rain.  Many people thought it was a sign from God.  A positive thing.  Of course the reason behind this wasn't something divine.  It has to do with precipitation and clouds, I remember at least that much from public school science class (I also did an interpretive dance about the water cycle in Outdoor School when I was in 6th grade). But even so, the first thought I had was a divine one.  I thought about John 11:35: "Jesus Wept." Counter th...

Even a "Writer with a Day Job" is still a Writer

One of the things I have an issue with is introducing myself as a writer.  When I have small talk, people tend to ask "What do you do?" And I would say "I'm a student" or "I work at the library" or "I work in a copy & print shop." But I would rarely say (and still rarely say) "I'm a writer."   Why is that? I've published 2 sets of poems. I've published an essay. I've had 4 soon to be 5 short stories published. Won 2 writing contests. And I've even self-published a book! Not to mention my BA in writing. I've done WAY more in the writing world than I have the library world and yet I am never shy about saying "I just finished library school." or "I'm working on becoming a librarian." Again I ask: Why is that? I think it has to do with worth and respect.  In introductions I jump to what gives me a paycheck, what pays the bills. That's what I "do...