Birthday Post

Today's my birthday!! I usually try not to make a big deal about birthdays, but I wanted to post for two reasons. One: Roy Stiffey, artist on Anonymous Nancy and all-around awesome guy, sent me this



Which is completely bad-ass! (btw, you can still pick up Anonymous Nancy, issues 1 and 2, on comiXology here)

The other reason I wanted to post is because it was on my birthday last year that I started my 365 stories project. Which means that, today, I have posted a new flash fiction story every day for the past year. That's 365 stories! Holy shit!

As I mentioned already, I'll be finishing out the month. Just feels cleaner that way. I'd like to say that I have special, profound story to end on, but I'll probably just crap something out about, like, fantasy warriors defeating an ancient enemy, or something post-apocalyptic, or whatever.

I'll probably spend the next couple weeks digging through the stories, just taking stock. I'd like to do some rewrites on the better ones and maybe put up a digital collection on like Amazon or something. We'll see.

Anyway, that's all for now!

365 Stories is Almost Done!

So, holy crap guys, I’m less than 20 stories short of completing this 365 stories project! I have to admit, when I first started on this I was less than convinced it was going to make it this for. I know for a lot of people it might seem like no big thing, a story every day, and most of them under 500 words, whatever. But for me? This was HUGE.

So looking back, what have I got? Well, if I’m being perfectly honest, a lot of it was pretty bad. Which is fine. That’s what I was expecting to end up with. These are all first drafts, and a lot of them were written just to get a story written. That’s writing, folks.

A lot of the stories seem like they could be the start of something bigger, like a series or a book, something like that. Some of them were clearly prologues to something much bigger. A few of them are actually pretty solid, stand-alone stories, or will be after a fair bit of editing. And a good bit of them will likely end up being stuffed under the rug and forgotten.

I’m especially happy with the 100 word stories. These were inspired by a friend, Eric Boyd, who posts regular six word stories. I wanted something with a bit more meat to it. I feel like telling a complete story in 100 words is an interesting literary challenge. I often found myself with a story at 105, or 112, or something like that. And I’d have to go through and figure out what I could cut or reword for the sake of brevity. That’s an exercise I’d recommend to any writer.

So, now that I’m almost up to 365 stories, I have to say that it’s about time to end this project. I won’t be writing daily stories anymore.

The whole point of this, after all, was to get myself writing every day. I feel like I’ve achieved that. The problem now is that, since I have so little time to write in a day as is, these short stories are starting to eat into my other projects. As fun as it is, and as useful, I think it’s time to take what I’ve learned and move on.

And, really, flash fiction is great, but there are things that you can’t do with it, and there are things I can’t learn and skills I can’t develop if my stories are all under 500 words. I need to learn to develop characters, and build arcs and so on and so forth.

So I’ll still be writing every day. Just that most of the time it’ll be part of something bigger. Like a longer short story, or even a novel. My goals for the year include writing a novel, and a screenplay, and I have some big comic book projects coming up (campaignersblog.tumblr.com). If I have something I feel is appropriate for the site, or if I just feel like cranking out a 100 worder as a warm-up, I’ll certainly post it. But otherwise, it’ll all be going elsewhere.

I actually thought about asking who might support a Patreon for more stories, but the more I thought about the more I realized that just didn’t feel right for what I was doing here. I might edit some of these and collect them, put an anthology up on Amazon, at some point in the future. We’ll see.

So, in the coming three weeks-ish, I’ll be winding down. I think I’m going to keep going through the end of the month, which will be a little over 365, but I fudged by posting a few older stories right after my daughter was born, so that should make up for it.

Thanks for reading, and for faving and reposting. And if anyone out there has any favorite stories or just wants to say hi, I’m here.

A New Year's Post!

So it’s a new year. Or at least it was four days ago. Some people use this as a time to reflect on the recent past and consider the near future. Some people think that’s dumb. As a writer/creative/whatever, I find opportunities for reflection and consideration, artificial or not, to be useful. So I thought I’d put some thoughts down, both on the past year and the one to come.

Outside of my own life, 2014 was kind of a rough one. At least from the news, the running theme seemed to be challenges to the established power structure, and violent response from that power structure. Whether it was GamerGate threatening women with rape and violence for daring to suggest they’d like to see women in video games who aren’t being raped or killed, or police bringing riot gear and tear gas to a protest of police brutality, there was definitely a theme there.

And, look, I mostly talk about comics here, so I don’t want to go too far down this path, and really so many other people have spoken more eloquently and with greater authority. So I’ll just say to those fighting the good fight (and, trust me, when you’re threatening to rape people or defending a police officer gunning down an unarmed man, you aren’t fighting the good fight): Keep at it. As a white guy, I can tweet my support, I can donate to causes, I can even show up at protests. I can support media that portrays women and people of color and other minorities in a positive light. Hell, I can even create that sort of media (or at least I can try). But at the end of the day, it’s gonna be you guys, fighting, sometimes an inch at a time. It may not seem like you’re gaining much ground now, but when you look back in a few years, (hopefully) you'll be able to say it was worth it.

To move on to lighter topics, in my personal life, it was actually a pretty great year. Anonymous Nancy issue 2 was finished, with the help of a Kickstarter. (Thanks again to all who backed and/or shared the link!) It’s even up on comiXology right now, along with issue 1. (Issue 3 is moving along quite nicely.) I’m mostly finished with a collection of three short horror comics. And I was able to write a brand-new short story every day! I’m almost up to 365 stories, which is kind of a huge deal for me. When I started that project, I was sincerely concerned that I would crap out after a few days.

I had tables at several conventions this past year, including Nittany Con, Sci-Fi Valley Con and WV Pop Con. Got to meet some cool people and had a really great time. Also slowing getting the hang of the whole “trying to get people to give a crap about things I write” thing.

More personally, and more importantly, I became the father of an amazing little girl. Five (and a half) months old now, and every day she’s challenged me, and every day is something special because she’s there when I wake up.

So that was my year. And for the coming year? Well, of course there’s writing. Always writing. Once I’ve finished up with all 365 stories, I’m likely going to put an end to that project. It was great fun, a huge challenge, and worth every story. The whole point was to get me writing every day. The problem is that now it’s taking up time that could be spent writing other, larger projects. So I’ll still be writing every day, certainly, but going forward it will be for larger projects; novels, full-length short stories, etc.

That’s one of my big goals for the new year, to write a novel, in full. I have a few novels that are close to being ready, so I’ll have to decide which one to write first. But it’s one foot in front of the other time. Time to get marching.

As far as comics go, there’s Nancy issue 3, hopefully I can have that ready to go by convention season, as well as this horror anthology, which I may end up running a small kickstarter for. I’d like to put together at least one more, but ideally two more anthologies. Similar format, three short, eight-ish page stories, but in different genres. Probably sci-fi next, and then maybe western or crime before coming back to horror again.

And of course, there’s the big project, Campaigners. This is going to be a pretty sizable Kickstarter, which I plan to run during the summer. If you’re not following the tumblr, it’s a story set in the year 2076, when presidential elections are decided by hand-to-hand fights, often to the death, and a young woman turning 18 on election day raises the ire of the entire country by declaring she plans not to vote. So check it out, share it, talk it up!

And of course, there’s more conventions to attend! People to meet, comics to sell! Friends to make!

Anyway, that’s my year-in-review, and my year-to-come. Best to all of you!