Author Archives: fictorians

A Guest Post by Lee French

I’ve never needed inspiration to write. From the moment I figured out letters could be arranged to form words which in turn could form sentences, I’ve been brain barfing all over the place. At the age of 6, it all clicked in my head. A few years later, thanks to the influence of Charlotte’s Web, I wrote a magnificent 6 page epic about turkeys and eagles and a crotchety old man. It got a shiny gold certificate of merit in the regional Young Author’s Faire, which probably had about the same value as a pat on the head.

It sat in a box in my closet for a long time.

Last summer, I moved after living in the same place for 15 years. The distance of the move—from Massachusetts to Washington state—meant that every square foot of stuff cost me a fair amount of money to get from point A to point B. In the process of preparing to move, I went through everything and tossed/donated/recycled umpteen bags of crap.

By the time I decided to move, I’d already self-published five books. With those five books, one of which is no longer available, I made a lot of mistakes. Looking back, it’s amazing how many awful, horrific blunders I committed. At that point, in May of 2014, I knew I’d made mistakes, and had an understanding of the scope of them. The idea of fixing them bore a great deal of resemblance to the process of packing up one’s voluminous belongings and leaving a house forever.

Two daunting yet necessary tasks converged and weighed me down. This was a dark moment when writing ceased to be a joy and became a chore. I saw it as a job instead of a diversion, the kind of drudgery best handled with a bottle of wine or three. Bang, bang, bang, went my fingers on my keyboard until I wore out the C key and space bar. Thanks, me, good job on making this even worse. True frustration is typing with an intermittently functioning space bar. It’s extra bad if you also like to play computer games like Orcs Must Die.

There I was, going through all my stuff and my kids’ stuff, thinking that selling my house and moving across the country could be the worst thing I’ve ever inflicted on myself besides the decision to self-publish a book. I had to fight with my kids to convince them to part with things they never used but refused to accept parting with anyway. The logistics of ensuring our pet mouse survived the journey seemed ridiculous. I had just surfaced from the unpleasantness of a divorce, and because of the move, had to dive back into contentious negotiations for visitation and child support. On top of all this, both my kids have wildly different manifestations of autism, which is a constant source of…lots of things.

Of course, there’s more. I’d been getting involved in local Worcester politics for a couple of years. In many ways, it never seemed like I, personally, had an effect on anything. We marched in the streets, we held standing protests and vigils, and we attended city council meetings. While the people I did these things with sometimes won small victories, I had the sense of being an ant among giants. They knew all the right things to say and do, and I had nothing to offer beyond holding a sign. Though I believed in all these causes and things, participating made me feel smaller than standing on the sidelines.

And then I sorted through that box.

Early July 2014, I sat in my bedroom with my old box of stuff. Sun poked through the cheap PVC blinds we’d never replaced after moving in. The window A/C unit chugged away, keeping the room pleasantly cool. I finally threw out the broken Discman I’d held onto since college for unknown reasons. My old high school drumsticks went into the trash too. I flipped through folders of old D&D characters and campaign notes, and then I found my first book.

I ran my fingers over the hideous red and green plaid fabric covering two pieces of cardboard for a cover. The sticker, though worn around the edges, was still shiny. Cracking it open, I found worn and yellowed pages of high quality paper on which I’d hand-written blue ink with a felt-tip pen:

A New Adventure in the Mean Old Man’s Backyard

Written and illustrated by Lee French

Along with these words, I found colored-in stick figures of a frowning person with a cane and feathered hat, a mouse, a turkey, two eagles, and a pond with three orange fish. My allergies may have acted up right then. Or something. I’m sure there’s an explanation for all the water that rushed to my eyes. Turning the page, I found black ink. The lines I drew in pencil with a ruler to keep the text straight had never been erased.

This book is for Heather Feather, Miss Moussese and Garfield Whale, who inspired this story.

Clearly, I should be outraged that I didn’t use Oxford commas then.

The world stopped while I paged through the book, reading my early prose. I remembered my mom, who has a degree in English, being proud of me for entering it into the Faire in the first place. I remembered the original story about The Mean Old Man’s Backyard, which involved turkeys because that was the only thing I knew how to draw. I remembered going to the Faire and seeing all those books and thinking…I’d have a real one of my own someday.

Sometimes, it takes a child to reveal a simple truth. Sometimes, that child is you.

I tucked the book into a new box and have never looked back again.

About the Author:
Lee French writes fantasy and superhero stories in Olympia, WA. Her favorite non-writing pastimes include tormenting D&D players, destroying weeds with fervor, and arguing in favor of Oxford commas. She is an active member of the Northwest Independent Writer’s Association and serves as one of two Municipal Liaisons for the NaNoWriMo Olympia region. Find more of her babble about bicycling, books, and bedevilment at www.authorleefrench.com.

On Motivation and the Quest for “It”

July 22, 2015

fictorians

Contests Publishing Self-Awareness Self-Motivation Starting a Career Submissions Writers/Illustrators of the Future No Comments

A Guest Post by Kary English

Somewhere between 25 and 30 years ago, I gave up on writing. I was fresh out of high school, and my dream career was to be a fantasy writer. I’d written two or three short stories, a play and the first pages of a few novels.

We didn’t have Duotrope or The Grinder back then, so I dutifully bought myself a copy of The Writer’s Market and sent off a few submissions–all of which were soundly rejected, though a particularly kind editor encouraged me to keep writing. My final submission was to a quarterly contest for new writers that I’d read about in the back of an anthology. Surely this would be the one.

Nope. Rejected.

Clearly, I didn’t have it, whatever “it” was, so I gave up. I stopped writing and focused on college and career, marriage and motherhood.

But the thing is, I never really stopped writing. Oh, sure, I stopped writing stories intended for publication, but I wrote lots of other things instead–academic papers, classroom handouts, book blurbs, textbook chapters and anti-bullying materials. And whenever my tabletop gaming group met, I wrote up our sessions as if they were stories.

Then the Great Recession hit, and I lost my job. To make ends meet, I started writing columns for Yahoo! in the areas of news, politics, travel and gossip. It didn’t pay well, but it was fun and it got me back into the habit of writing every day. Not long after, stories started pressing their noses against the glass again.

Maybe, I thought, I could give this writer thing another try. I checked out recent issues of Analog and Asimov’s to get a sense of the field, and I hit the internet to see if that contest was still running.

The contest was Writers of the Future, and not only was it still running, but it had become one of the best ways for a new writer to gain recognition in a crowded field.

So I sat down and wrote my first story in nearly three decades. When it was finished, I sent it to Writers of the Future.

A few months later, boom. Semi-finalist.

My placement earned me a few paragraphs of feedback, and that’s where I discovered that finalist selection had come down to my story and one other, and the judge had chosen the other story. It wasn’t a win. Heck, it wasn’t even a finalist, but it was close enough that I knew I was on the right track, that whatever “it” was, maybe I had a little of it after all. And maybe if I kept writing and worked on my craft, I could acquire more of it.

That semi, combined with contest’s quarterly structure, gave me the motivation I needed to write regularly. Over the next eighteen months, I attended several workshops and wrote six more stories. Every time I sat down to write, I mapped out the elements of craft that I’d be working on in that particular story. For one of them, it was fast pacing and a convincing male POV. For another it was a complex, non-linear structure and an ending that would make the reader cry.

Those six stories garnered four professional sales, a ghostwriting contract, a Hugo nomination and three finalist placements in WOTF, one of which went on to win. And this from a writer who thought she didn’t have it.

In the process, I also figured out what “it” is.

It’s all too easy to get discouraged in this business, and discouragement can strike at any level, from the newest aspirant to the seasoned bestseller. It–that thing you have to have to get anywhere in the writing world–isn’t talent or contacts or good ideas. It’s perseverance.

You write, and you keep on writing no matter what happens. Rejections, family obligations, your day job, moving, job loss, depression–keep writing. Take a break if you have to, but come back as soon as you can.

On the Writers of the Future Forum, we tell hopeful writers that there are only three ways out of the contest, but the advice applies to writing in general, too.

1) You win.

2) You pro out.

3) You stop entering.

Number three is entirely under the writer’s control, so don’t quit. As long as you don’t quit, you’ve narrowed the possibilities to #1 and #2, both of which lead to a career in the field. If you do quit, come back, even if it’s been decades since the last thing you wrote.

It worked for me, and that means it can work for you, too.

About the Author:
Kary English grew up in the snowy Midwest where she avoided siblings and frostbite by reading book after book in a warm corner behind a recliner chair. Today, Kary still spends most of her time with her head in the clouds and her nose in a book. To the great relief of her parents, she seems to be making a living at it.

Kary is a Writers of the Future winner and Hugo nominee whose work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Grantville Gazette’s Universe Annex, Writers of the Future, Vol. 31 and Galaxy’s Edge.

SF&F Saved My Life

July 21, 2015

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Lissa Woodbury Jensen Making Progress as a Writer Motivation Reflection Self-Awareness The Writing Life Writing as An Emotional Outlet 1 Comment

A Guest Post by Lissa Woodbury Jensen

Science Fiction/Fantasy saved my life. My first year in college was a disaster. I arrived at University with huge dreams and the belief that I mattered to the world. One month into classes, reality set in hard and fast. My rose-tinted glasses had been wiped clean and I suddenly had a startling view into what others were seeing, most notably, of me.

I was a big girl. The fact that I had weighed over 200 pounds in high school hadn’t stopped me. I was cocooned within protective friendships and loyal family. I was even the lead in our musical that year, Hello Dolly. I distinctly remember “dieting” (starving, eating only broiled hamburger) and losing ten pounds. I will never forget the morning of opening night, when I stepped onto the scale and it read one hundred and ninety pounds! My heart soared in ironic delight as I performed Dolly with the combined gusto of Ethel Merman and brash exaggeration of Carol Channing.

No one made fun of me. Everyone stood and cheered. I chalked it up to talent, ignoring the fact that perhaps they were cheering because I had walked a long road of recovery from teen-age drug and alcohol abuse.

The problem in college was that no one knew my background or history, nor did they care. The encouraging smiles were absent and the continual words of support ceased. I was a five foot, nine inches tall “lardo.” Oh, and I also had acne. Top that off with (then undiagnosed) ADHD and I became the proverbial bull in the china shop. I overcompensated, trying to be “the funny one.” I just got looks of pityo I withdrew into a different kind of cocoon. Night after night, I sat alone in my dorm room while others cavorted socially and worried about who their next date would be. Instead of cutting back on calories, food became my BFF. I tried out for plays but was never the right “type.”

Late one lonely evening, I ate a family sized bag of Nachos. After shoving the last chip into my mouth, I started licking the orange residue off my hands. As my tongue rolled off my pinkie finger, I glanced in the mirror. I was ashamed. Sad eyes looked back at me. Tiny orange crumbs caked the inside corners of my mouth and I hated myself. So much so that I decided I would rather be dead. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became. I planned how I would do it and actually looked forward to the day of my mortal release.

A few days before my planned exit, I was walking through the dorm lobby and found a book that had fallen to the floor. It was a thick tome that piqued my curiosity. The title read “The Fellowship of the Ring” by J. R. R. Tolkien. Having nothing else to do, I took it to my room and began to read. I was captivated. I read on through the night and well into the next day. My death obsession was put on hold as I became Frodo struggling towards his epic destiny. I disappeared into my head and battled orcs, demons and evil wizards. Gandalf was my beloved mentor and I wept with abandon at his demise.

The day of my planned exit from this life came, yet I had begun reading “The Two Towers” and wanted to find out more about Gollum. I decided I could wait a while longer while I marched towards Mount Doom with Frodo and Sam. Setting sleep aside, I joined my comrades as we raced to our journey’s epic conclusion for “Return of the King.” My self-esteem soared and food was forgotten when, finally, the ring was destroyed and we crowned the true king of the land. I lay there, exhausted, and grieving for the loss of my newfound friends as the last few words of the book were seared into my brain. I surfaced back into the present and was reminded that the time for my deadly plan had come.

I balked. Had Frodo given up when in the dredges of Mordor? Had hefty Samwise Gamgee let the difficulty of his assignment stop him? When Frodo won the acclaim and adulation, did Sam think less of himself because he didn’t get the same recognition? I felt changed inside. I hadn’t just read the book; I had been part of the Fellowship.

And I couldn’t quit now. I contemplated my paradox. Perhaps I could prolong the day of my death a bit longer.

I went to the school’s library and left, clutching the librarian’s recommendation, “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card. If I thought I could never love another being like Frodo, I was wrong. Andrew Wiggins’ trouble fitting in at Battle School in space endeared me to him like no other. As he grew in experience, gaining the trust of his peers and overcoming those who would bring him down, I felt a new resolve blossom within my soul. My problems were still evident, but I knew now that I could find a sense of identity, companionship, and unlimited adventure in worlds beyond the one I currently inhabited.

This realization gave me hope and I devoured all the science fiction and fantasy I could lay my hands on. I no longer obsessed about which day I would end my mortal pain and threw away all the tools I had kept for such an event. I continued with the Ender universe and many others, eventually learning to construct my own worlds and the stories within them.

Science fiction and fantasy opened worlds without end, where anything was possible for an inexperienced and uncertain young woman teetering on the edge. Strong and creative characters taught me to persevere and believe in myself, despite all odds. I lost weight, gained focus and never looked back. Years later, I continue to write, imagine the impossible, and look for new worlds to explore.

About the Author:
Lissa Woodbury Jensen lives in Alaska and loves imagining the impossible. Her initial career was in theatre arts. She did some filming in Los Angeles, but her primary love was the stage. In addition to performing, Lissa directed and choreographed many Broadway hits. She began her writing career by authoring short plays, dramatic presentations and original musical productions. She now concentrates solely on fiction. She loves to write about flawed characters that redeem themselves. Her favorite quote is from the movie Chariots of Fire: “God made me fast; and when I run, I feel His Pleasure!”

My Last Thought

July 19, 2015

fictorians

Conventions Darin Calhoun Guest Posts Interacting With Professionals Professional Behavior Self-Awareness Starting a Career Superstars Writing Seminars Work-Life Balance World Fantasy Con No Comments

A Guest Post by Darin Calhoun

April 2002, I was driving to work on the 210 Freeway, just passing Irwindale, when I glanced at my rear view mirror and saw a white, Scully, Semi-Truck. My Last thought was, “Wow, he’s going fast.” I have no memory of the collision, only fragmented flashes of the aftermath. One such brief moment, I was staring at the instrument panel of my Geo Metro, and someone was holding a wad of cloth on my head. They placed my hand on it so that I could hold it myself. Someone talked to me, but I don’t remember their words or my own. A flash later, I was in a helicopter on a stretcher freezing my ass off because someone had cut up my clothes, and the doors were open. I yelled at them to close the doors. They ignored me. I remember coming around as they wheeled into the emergency room.

The doctor told me that he was going to put staples into my scalp. The skin made a squishing sound as he inspected it. I chuckled. It was like something from a bad movie. He told me there wouldn’t be much pain because there weren’t a lot of nerves back there.

“So what are your hobbies?” asked the doctor.

“I belong to the Society for Creative Anachronism, and I do medieval combat in armor with rattan weapons.”

“So, like jousting?”

“We have equestrian arts but not with heavy armored fighting. Physics works. If we use horses we would hurt each other, and it’s not cool to break your friends.”

The doctor put in the first staple. Everything faded, and a string of curse words that sounds like my voice comes from somewhere distant.

“Just two more.” said the doctor.

I hear the staple gun click, and my world faded even more. Machines chirped and beeped in alarm.

The doctor shakes me. “Hey, hey buddy. Tell me more about that jousting.”

That pissed me off. “I…to…ld…you, it’s, not jousting!”

The doctor gave me a shot of local anesthetic and stitched up the rest of my scalp. A nice four-inch crescent scar between the parietal and occipital area of my brain, the lowest part was about an inch or so above my brain stem.

After some x-rays to make sure my brains weren’t leaking out, they sent me to the recovery room to fill up my diminished blood with saline. Supposedly, I was two quarts low. Then after making a statement to the police that, I don’t recall the details of, my wife, then girlfriend, took me to her work. I nearly passed out in the car. It seemed that the saline in my blood wasn’t really helping and that I was still a few quarts low. So after twenty-four hours of observation I was clear to start my recovery.

At first, I did not realize how much I had lost. What was bad before became worse. It was a challenge just to remain awake. At first, I’d be awake for an hour or two, and then I would fade out. For two weeks, I struggled to be awake for eight hours, so I could return to work. But I was on autopilot. The hours on the bus and at work were a blur. I changed jobs, and I still don’t remember the details. I was in limbo.

Gulf War One hit and I was laid off. I was without a job for the first time in my life. I was collecting unemployment, and in a bad place, but my girlfriend was there to help me. She took me in and I pitched in with money from my disability check while I waited on my settlement from the trucking company that ran me over.

But I was just existing, a bad place for an artist. After the crash, I lost the ability to draw. I had spent twelve years in developing a career in comics, and now that was suddenly gone. To keep my sanity, I turned to writing. I took out three pages I had written five years before as a challenge, a story about a world that had neither magic nor digital technology. I worked at it. I struggled to write a single page a day. I failed more than I succeeded. I still went to the doctors, but they just wanted to give me pills and I wanted rehabilitation–a purpose for my life.

I went to a social security judge for my federal disability and he said, “Mr. Calhoun, you are impaired not disabled.”

“Yes sir, your honor.” I replied.

“If you apply to five jobs and are fired. Then I’ll reconsider your case.”

I was appalled. “Thank you, your honor, but I can’t do that. I will find another way.”

That is when I decided to become a professional writer.

Life had other plans. I received a panicked call from my ex-wife that my daughter had been taken into protective custody by Child Protective Services. After enduring, a hellish bureaucratic quagmire of jumping through hoops my girlfriend and I got custody of my daughter, and I became a househusband and a PTA dad.

My daughter loved my stories. She just hated it when I was writing. So I wrote when she was at school and when she was asleep. It took me seven years to finish my first book and I was shocked to find out why. I had undiagnosed diabetes for seven years due to the accident.

It was in 2009 when I found out. My energy and focus was crap, and my temper had a hair trigger. Although, most of the time I was angry with myself due to frustration. When I talked about it with my mom, I found out she had hypoglycemia. I never knew that about my mom. She suggested that I eat five small meals a day. I did and I felt worse. I felt that I might be diabetic so I bought a blood sugar tester at a drugstore–467.

Oh, crap!

So now, I knew. After a doctors trip, and a diabetic training session, I found out diabetes is a package deal. You get the bonus of high blood pressure and heart disease.

Triple crap!
But I felt better, and now I made the big jump, perusing a career as a writer. I read a half dozen how-to-write books. I also listened to writing podcasts (Yay, Writing Excuses!), went to writing conventions: LtUE in Provo, and World Fantasy Con. But most importantly, I took the Superstars Writing Seminar. Which was not about craft and how to write, but giving the writer tools on how to have a successful writing career, how to set yourself up so you’re not just going from failure to failure.

In the years, after I have found out whom I am as a writer. What my voice was, and where I belong in the wild world of publishing. The Superstar members are on the cutting edge of the industry. They were surfing the e-book revolution while the big 6 (now 5) publishers were in denial of the importance of Amazon.

And just when I thought I had learned all that I could from the Superstars, I volunteered to help run the Word Fire Press booth for Wondercon. I have not worked that hard since I was holding a waterlogged, ice cold, eight-inch line during an underway replenishment in the North Atlantic when I was in the Navy. Everyone was an author, who I swear had a secret contest on who could sell the most books. I struggled to keep up with these hard working writers putting themselves out there. I learned the importance of how to set up a booth for maximum exposure, the Feng Shui of stacking books, and the art of the soft sell, and most importantly, how much stories affect our lives. From when a young man brought dog-eared books, his father had passed on to him and how that son thanked the author for the wonderful childhood memories as the author signed with ink and tears. To the veteran thanking the author for helping him through the hell of war and its aftermath–not a dry eye in the house with that one.

That is why I write. I wish to be a ray of hope in a dark world. And that is my last thought.

About the Author:
Darin Calhoun is an author adrift on the genre seas, with the island of Action and Adventure as his home. Be warned, as he tends to write about strong women and flawed heroes. You may see him posting on Twitter or Facebook at 3AM but this isn’t unusual. He has an abusive muse. Some writers’ muses give them a gentile tap on the shoulder, his uses a sledgehammer to the head.