The Ready Writer

Hey all! This week has been a little bumpy for me in regards to blogging. I'm working on my first grant! I have to submit it ASAP so I've been devoting all of my brain power on it. So, I'm gonna use this post as a quick update. I've been editing works on Scribophile . And soon I'll be posting flash fiction there to see if any of them can grow into short stories. I finished a short story! Currently looking for places to submit it. I am also writing/editing another short story. I'm 700+ words into my novel :) I'm also reading a couple of things: & Check me out on goodreads to stay updated on what I'm reading! Anyway, that's all for now.  I'm working hard, but in a frenzy.  Regular posts should resume next week. Until next time, Memento Mori &;

It is 2018! There will be some exciting things happening here on the blog. New Things: Book reviews! If you're not following me on Goodreads yet, you should be.  I will be posting reviews of the books I read both on Goodreads and here on the blog.  If you wanna be a writer,  you gotta be a reader. More Flash Fiction! I'm on Scribophile now so if you want small tastes of my spooky short writing - you can find it there or here on the blog. Updates: Twice weekly posts! These will be updates, movie reviews, video game reviews, horror history, and whatever other nonsense I want to post. They will be Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am going through this book  so I will record my progress here on the blog too during those Tuesday or Thursday posts. Last thing: 2018 is the year of the (online serial) novel! The first chapters will post THIS YEAR. More teasers to my online serial novel later. Share in the comments what your reading & writing go...

Hello! I haven't fallen off the face of the planet, just busy with 2.5 jobs and trying to get some writing in.  Actual writing trumps writing ABOUT writing.  But here is where I currently stand. I haven't touched my main project in months which has actually been a good thing for me. I've been reading, working on short stories, and generally just thinking about who I am as a writer and that has done me a lot of good. As I grow older, I find myself really trying to take the time to think introspectively and to think about who I am now, and who I want to grow to be.  This is especially good for me while I try to craft and create my writers "voice."   So, let me introduce myself: I am a horror writer. My influences come heavily from American Southern Gothic literature and American Spiritualism.   And knowing that now, my writing is taking shape. I'm finding my voice. All this time I didn't think I had a writing voice, but I do! I have ...

Hello, Hello! We are past the halfway point for Camp NaNoWriMo and my current word count is 5,166 words of my 10,000 word goal!  I'm busy busy busy but I'm still trying to get the words in when I can. Not much else to update on, so I will do some shameless self-promotion! Be sure to pre-order the horror anthology "Death & Pestilence" by Sands Press, coming out June 15, 2017 which features one of my short stories  here . Or, if you are not in the mood for something scary, you can purchase my children's book here . That's all for now! Memento Mori &;

Hello, Hello! Camp Nanowrimo Update:  4592 words. American Gothic Update: This series will be coming in May.  April is tooooo hectic for me to be able to pen it out, but its coming next month :)  For my post today, I just wanted to share a couple of small things that have inspired me lately.  I wouldn't say that I am in a slump, but words are flowing a little slower than usual.  Maybe its because I'm a writer with 2 day jobs, or because I'm working 6-7 days a week.  I dunno.  It doesn't matter in the scheme of things. As many of you know, I'm working on my first novel projects.  One that I plan on publishing traditionally, and one that I plan on publishing serially.  But as a short story writer, I feel very much out of my comfort zone.  A friend of mine came last summer and helped me immensely with the outlining process (which is not the same for everyone, but I didn't even know where to start). But outlining is ...

Hello, Hello! Lets start with some updates: It's Camp NaNoWriMo!  I set a goal for myself to get my project to 10,000 words.  I'm at 4470 right now.  This month is a crazy work month for me (Medford Comic Con is gonna be awesome though), so I'm not sure I'll hit my 10,000 BUT I am chugging along.  Squeezing in words as best as I can. Okay, now on to some suggestions! PODCASTS I am a huuuuuge fan of podcasts.  In fact, I haven't listened to music in....months? because I am constantly listening to podcasts and audio books.  I've recently discovered some new podcasts. I. LOVE. True Crime.  I have loved true crime forever.  I collect all of the Time Magazines about Serial Killers.  I have books on serial killers, I have an encyclopedia of violent crime, I watch True Crime shows, etc. etc. etc. This is a true crime podcast, but what makes this one great (to me) are the hosts.  It is hosted by two smart, savvy, fun, l...

I have written about writing resistance before, but seeing as I am currently in a slump, I thought I would bring the topic up again. I'm having some troubles with a short story. I wrote one for a deadline and because I had only finished the draft the day it was due for submission, I didn't get a chance to edit it.  It got rejected (which wasn't a huge shocker to me), and quite frankly I was a little relieved because that meant that I could polish it. I found another place that was accepting submissions, so I thought "Perfect!" and I got to editing. Only I wasn't really editing.  I was just cutting. My story was well over the word limit for this particular journal, so I just started cutting.  I chopped and chopped and chopped and eventually I just had a collection of fragmented sentences that were sort of going in a direction, but not really telling a story.  In the midst of all of this cutting, I missed the deadline for that journal too. So I scr...

So I have to confess that I haven't been the best at writing so far this year.  And yes, I know that the year is still young.  I DID submit a short story in January, and that is exciting, but I haven't done much else. Here are my excuses: -New Years Party -Grandfather Passed Away -Water Heater Leaked -Been working lots of extra hours since my SO lost his job -Applied and interviewed for a job that I really wanted and then didn't get it (which put me in a bad place) -My Birthday Okay. Got that out of the way. But things are on the upswing. My SO starts his new job in March, I'll be back in town (I'm going out of town to visit family in a couple of weeks) and my hours at both jobs will be back to normal (ish). I know I already stated my writing goals in a previous post.  But I'm committing to it (again). Right now. I'm in the process of re-writing the ENTIRE first act of my novel so it works with the plan I have for the next 2 third...

I can't believe it is time for another writing update! I hate to say, but I've been in sort of a slump.  I haven't worked on my main project in a few weeks, and I've been writing sporadically on a short story in 50-100 word chunks. Part of it is because I'm working a lot, so I just write when I can squeeze in a few moments, and its easier for me to work on my short story in tiny chunks than my main project. But another part of it is because I'm just...tired. Between my 2 jobs I've been working full time, and when you work one job that you hate, and another job that you feel stuck in, it feels like a LOT more than 40 hours, and all of that leads to writing resistance. At the beginning of the year, I did a tarot card spread for myself and it told me that the one thing that will make this year successful for me is moderation.  For me, this doesn't necessarily mean cutting out things that I want to do, but rather it means allowing myself to not do ...

It's a new year! While there were a lot of bad things about 2016, I made some pretty big strides in figuring out who I am as a writer and what I want to write about. I finally accepted the fact that I write horror, and while some people may not think that it is "real" literature, I do.  And that is all that matters. I finally accepted that I also like to write Junior and YA fiction, and they too are valid, and that they can handle scary stories too. So, with these revelations in mind, I made some 2017 writer goals: Finish my main project Draft 1 Write 6 short stories and have them polished to final draft quality. Revamp my website.  It is in MUCH need of a makeover. Keep working on my side project during the 3 Nanos throughout the year (November, April, and July).  I have been having a lot of fun with that project, and it is a nice break in between my bigger projects. I have A LOT to keep me busy this year.  What are some of your goals and resolut...

Hello Readers! Just a quick update to let you all know that I am taking a hiatus for the rest of 2016.  Right now I am working on a short story and spending holiday time with loved whens during the times that I am not swamped with the extra hours I picked up at both of my jobs. I have some plans for the blog in 2017.  Writing updates and horror history will continue.  But what do you all think of some sort of book reviews? Not on any sort of regular schedule, just as I finish reading books? Just a thought. Anyway, have a Merry Holiday, a Happy New Year, and I'll see you in 2017!

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 j...

So its the last day of NaNoWriMo and while I am nowhere close to 50,000 words, I am proud to have written close to 4,500. Why? Well, I started working on my main project in July,  and I finished the first Act in October at AROUND 8,000 words. I have written over half of what I wrote in 3 months, in just one. That's because I am working that writing muscle. It isn't a surprise that writing everyday is the best thing to do if you want to be a writer. But as someone with 2 jobs and somewhat of a social life, that can be hard. So I try to write as often as I can.  I used the fun frantic energy of NaNoWriMo to test myself, and to see if I could still squeeze writing in at any possible moment I could even if that meant just taking 5 minutes to write 50 words as opposed to sitting down for an hour and seeing how much I could write. And it helped! I find that I am getting better at getting focused faster, words come a little better, and my writing chunks are getting a litt...

So I am still on hiatus from my main project, but that doesn't mean I'm not writing. In order to keep my horror writer brain sharp, I am doing the following: Working on my "affair" or "backburner" project .  This allows me to distance myself from my main project so that I can come back to it ready to edit critically (and next week I'll talk about what those edits will entail). Reading.   I'm a firm believer (but not the only one that believes it) that in order to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader (and by good, I mean participating in the act of those activities). So I am reading a lot of horror and seeing what the greats (as well as the newbies) are doing in the world of horror.  If you want to see what I'm reading, you can friend me on Goodreads.  You can find me under my full name: Brystan Strong. Research. This may fall into both the previous category and the next one, but I'm doing scholarly research on the genr...

So I finished Act I of my novel! Yay!  It's somewhere along 8,000 words.  My last 2 chapters are more notes than actual prose because I realized that I needed to make some shifts, so I didn't want to write chapters that would ultimately most likely just get thrown out.  So, now I'm taking a month off from that project (so I can distance myself a bit from it, and be able to edit a little more critically.) In the meantime, I am participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and working on my "affair project". Here's the thing.  I love NaNo. I have participated in it off and on since I was in high school, I was a municipal liaison once, and have made a lot of friends doing it, but I have NEVER made it to 50,000 words.  I've always burnt out.  And I won't make the wordcount again this year either.  But the issue I was having before was that I was using Nano as a means to finish a project. And I just don't work that way.  Not onl...

I don't have any numbers for you this time, I will next time though. I do have a pretty dramatic (okay, maybe not dramatic to you) update about my project.  When I was writing that short post about horror subgenres I mentioned that my current piece is mostly apocolyptic horror with a sprinkle of occult horror mixed in. Well, my biggest struggle with my project has been that I haven't thought that it was scary enough, or scary at all.  And I think that is because I was writing within a subgenre that I don't think is all that scary.  Apocolyptic horror doesn't really scare me.  Occult horror definitely does.  So, I have decided to make a tonal shift.  I am going to make my novel an occult horror with some themes of apocolyptic horror sprinkled in.  The world isn't going to end, but the world as my characters know it, will, and this will be at the hand of a cult like entity.  This also allows for the slight supernatural elements of my story to be...

So I really liked the last stats post where it felt more like a chat rather than just a list of numbers, so that may be how I do it from now on. I wrote 778 words over the course of the last 2 weeks, which isn't a tremendous amount, but I was also on vacation during one of those weeks and didn't do any writing (though I had hoped to). This brings my total project word count to 8,996. But I did finish chapter 5 and started chapter 6 which is awesome.  I'm still working towards the goal of finishing Act 1 by the end of the month.  I know the editing process is going to be a long one, but studying the genre, and also writing those little flash horror stories have helped me to get my voice back a little bit.  I think I mentioned it in the last post, but I had been struggling with that a little bit during this book.  Not sure if its the length, or the fact that its my first dystopia, or what it was, but the tone and overall voice of this first Act is...messy....

Hello everyone! So I didnt track how many words I wrote each day, but I did write a total of 764 words last week which brings my total project wordcount to 8,218 words. I do have some goals for the month of October.  I want to finish Act 1 by the end of the month, I'm just finishing Chapter 4 right now and according to my outline, Act 1 should carry me through the first 8 chapters.  This means some intense writing days, but I think I'm ready for it.  Right now I'm a little disappointed with my small word count, but I'm halfway through act 1 now and am a little over 8000 words, so I'm gonna shoot for Act 1 being twice that.  And if each Act is 16,000 words, I'll hit right around the 50,000 word first draft I was originally shooting for, so I'm gonna try not to stress too much. The reason for the Halloween deadline is because... ...I want to participate in NaNoWriMo.  I miss the frantic off the cuff writing.  No outlines, no rules, just crazy writing....

So... I don't have any writing stats for this past week because...well...I didn't write. Here are the quick excuses: I devoted a lot of time to working out, picked up extra hours at my library job, and finished 2 books.  But the real excuse: I felt burnt out. Some of you who know me, know I've attempted to write books, and tend to get burnt out in chapter 2, and give up only to start another project and do the same thing again. This is why this project has gotten me so excited, because I've made it almost to the end of Act 1, and until this week I had no plans on giving up.  But coming back from my break for my wrist, the words just weren't flowing.  And I was terrified.  I was thinking I was gonna burn out and give up...again. As I sat down to try to write I kept thinking "this isn't scary enough" "my characters aren't deep enough" or the usual "are people even going to like this??" But instead of giving up, I just decide...

Just a reminder to all you readers, no stats blog this week because I took last week off from writing to heal my wrist.  I've been pain free all week and am excited to get back to writing tomorrow. So I am taking this day of blogging to kickstart a series of posts in which I will be talking about the horror genre.  But before I can even do that, I have to talk about what brought me to that genre and why I write it, and my journey to accepting the fact that I write horror. This post is just a brief intro into my writing and reading habits as a kid through adulthood.  The other posts will be a mix of information and my own experiences with the genre. But here is the start: I got interested in reading much like most kids: with the Goosebumps novels.  Sure, they weren't THAT scary, even to me as a kid, but they were still "darker" than some of the books I was supposed to be reading.  I read Babysitters Club, and The Boxcar Children, and the like, and they were fi...