Author Archives: Jace Killan

Nearly three years ago, I attended Superstars Writing Seminar in Colorado Springs. I had been writing for about a year and was excited to learn how to become a published author.

It soon became apparent that I was ahead of my time in attending. Not that it didn’t totally propel my development as a writer, but one fact kept slapping me in the face—I had never finished a book. I had started several, they had great ideas, great premises; yet I hadn’t finished any of them. I would write a few chapters, get stuck, and abandon the piece indefinitely.

Several in the group claimed to have written terrible novels of which they were too ashamed to let see the light of day. But they had finished them all the same. I envied them.

I left Superstars with the resolve that I needed to finish something, anything, regardless of skill or quality.

Well, three years later, I’ve thrown out hundreds of thousands of words. I almost finished a novel about a year ago and almost completed it, solely out of principle, to be able to claim that I had finished a novel. But after taking a writing seminar from David Farland, I knew it was garbage. I abandoned the 90% finished work for a new project.

This year I did a lot of things and learned a lot of things that have helped my writing. Each of these has a synergistic effect on my writing. First, I took another class from David Farland (this time online). I set monthly goals. Some of these goals required me to submit my short stories for publication. I hired an editor to perfect a couple short stories, and learned from this experience a great deal about self-editing. The culmination of these led to the completion of a novel. I completed a novel.

In February, I’m returning to Superstars, this time having completed a novel. Also, from my goals and endeavors, I am now a published writer. I had no less than three of my short pieces published (one in a paying market). I received my first rejection letter from Writers of the Future. And this year was my first to participate in NaNoWriMo. I wrote about 42,000 words (8k shy of winning).

These are exciting accomplishments, but the grandest of all, the one that will make me a successful writer one day, is the accomplishment of not giving up. I’m still writing.

I’m planning on taking another David Farland class or two, attending Superstars, winning NaNoWriMo, and writing throughout the year, finishing at least one other novel. I’ll submit each quarter to Writers of the Future. And I’m looking for an agent for my finished novel (despite being my first, it’s actually pretty good).

I live in Arizona with my family, wife and five kids and a little dog. I write fiction, thrillers and soft sci-fi with a little short horror on the side. I’ve got an MBA and work in finance for a biotechnology firm.

I volunteer with the Boy Scouts, play and write music, and enjoy everything outdoors. I’m also a novice photographer.

You can visit my author website at www.jacekillan.com, and you can read some of my works by visiting my Wattpad page.

Writing for Magazines and Newspapers

November 19, 2015

Jace Killan

Jace Killan Non-fiction writing Starting a Career Successes The Writing Life The Writing Process 1 Comment

The place of my day job interviewed several candidates to assist with marketing a retail antique store and restaurant. After floating through a few self-proclaimed gurus with no real results we became frustrated. Then someone pointed out that Jace was a writer. I hadn’t considered writing in that fashion and at that time knew very little about antiques, but why not give it a go? I liked being referred to as a writer and wanted to prove that I deserved the title, so I wrote a piece and submitted it to a local paper.

Let me pause here to emphasize an important observation. While the piece was well written and fairly entertaining, the paper was overly excited to have content. I’ve noticed that time and time again magazines, periodicals, and papers are looking for content to legitimize their advertising space.

That local paper liked the article so much that they asked if they could run it in their national paper. Now antiques are a bit of a niche, I’ll admit, but still there are enough readers to support a national distribution. Within a month I had received versions of these papers from as far away as Rhode Island and Canada all featuring my article.

So I did it again. This time I was let in on a little secret. This national paper only had a handful of contributors and they were extremely grateful for another. The articles allowed me to mention our store, and have helped with some free press.

I wasn’t compensated for these articles from the papers but the free advertising we received was worth thousands. And because I wasn’t compensated there weren’t any contracts or rights or terms. So I turned around a couple months later and submitted that same first article to several other papers. Now I’ve submitted articles all over. I’ve ran the same article in multiple papers at the same time. In fact, each time I’ve submitted an article to a paper I’ve been thanked and the article has ran in the next installment.

This goes back to my earlier observation: papers are looking for content.

There’s a lot of blogging going on these days, but print articles are still in demand (especially free articles). There are nationalized papers, journals, periodicals that are specific to niches like antiques. Most (I assume all) of these papers maintain their existence through advertising, but they all need someone’s words to print, stories to share. Larry Correia gains continual attention when he writes nonfiction about things like gun control.

It has been good for me in my writing career. Not financially per se but it has given me deadlines to meet, word counts to maintain, and it has gotten my name in front of tens of thousands.

Tracy Hickman once asked me why I write. He answered for me while I was thinking on the question, “To inspire,” he said. Whether fiction or non, contract or free, I write to inspire. Antiquing has become a fun niche where I can do just that.

I volunteer with the Boy Scouts, play and write music, and enjoy everything outdoors. I’m also a novice photographer.

You can visit my author website at www.jacekillan.com, and you can read some of my works by visiting my Wattpad page.

Don’t be Afraid to Write–Horror

October 22, 2015

Jace Killan

Horror Jace Killan Self-Awareness The Writing Life Tropes & Archetypes Writing as An Emotional Outlet No Comments

“What do you write?” is the most common question I get when people find out I’m a writer. At first I really wasn’t sure.

Fiction, I suppose. I write fiction.

“What kind?” would be the follow up. I really didn’t know so I would spout out some authors.

My writings are like John Grisham, Tom Clancy, and maybe Orson Scott Card. These were favorite authors, but my stories were a little different than theirs.

“Sci-fi?”

Hmm, not really. I guess you’d call it more thriller.

I asked one lady what she liked to read. “Horror,” she said. “I love horror.”

I was surprised. This little gal, sweet, nice, the church going type, loving horror? IT, Chucky, The Night of the Living Dead? I had only seen clips of these horror flicks and that was enough to haunt my sleep for a good long time.

A few months later I attended a writing workshop where I was supposed to bring my latest completed short story. I didn’t think anyone would read it, just that we would be shown how to self edit. Nope, we read it aloud to the group. I was immediately embarrassed as the piece was a little disturbing with some paranormal elements to it.

What do you write? Came the question to the group. Fantasy, I said. I had learned that fantasy engulfed a lot of make-believe fiction.

“Oh no my friend, you write horror,” the instructor said.

I was floored. Really? Horror? My piece had a little blood and a ghost, and well—suicide, but that was hardly the Night of the Living Dead.

As I grew in my writing and understanding of genre, I reflected on those stories I had read as a child that stuck with me like The Monkey’s Paw or The Veldt. I realized that they were horror.

I read Ticktock by Dean Koontz and absolutely loved it. That prodded me to read many more of his works. I quickly discovered that I read horror. I loved horror.

I am not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells is one of the best series I have read in the horror genre.

I also realized that many pieces I had written but hadn’t shared for fear of being thought odd or insane or psycho, were great pieces of horror. They addressed my fears. In a way, writing terrible things with horrific endings (story not prose) was a way to cope with my real fears.

I’ve learned that the horror genre in movies is different than books. Silence of the Lambs and The Ghost and the Darkness fall under the movie genre of Drama where they are clearly a Horror genre in literature. Horror isn’t necessarily blood or violence. But it can be both.

What I’ve learned most is to not be afraid of my own stories. I’ve had some turn their eyebrows up at me, wondering what sort of devil possessed my mind to turn out a story so horrifyingly brilliant. To that I smile and nod. Just wait, I have yet to write my best work.

I volunteer with the Boy Scouts, play and write music, and enjoy everything outdoors. I’m also a novice photographer.

You can visit my author website at www.jacekillan.com, and you can read some of my works by visiting my Wattpad page.

Confessions of a Con Novice

September 24, 2015

Jace Killan

Conventions Jace Killan The Writing Life World Fantasy Con WorldCon 1 Comment

A few years ago at a writing seminar I was asked if I’d be attending a local upcoming “Con.” I wasn’t exactly sure what a Con was. My friend clarified that she was referring to “Comicon.”

This may come as a surprise to some, but I hadn’t ever heard of Comicon. Or Dragon Con or Worldcon except that it sounded like Worldcom. (No I promise that isn’t a knock at the Hugos. I really was this ignorant).

But I didn’t want to flaunt my ignorance so I googled, Comicon and sure enough there was one in Phoenix that summer.

Have you ever learned an exotic word that you could swear you’ve never heard before, but once you learn it, you hear it everywhere? All of the sudden, everyone I knew was talking about Comicon.

So I gathered the family and we ventured to the conference center. I was blown away at how popular it was. There were crowds upon crowds of people, most dressed up like it was Halloween. Someone asked me if I was into Cosplay. This was also a new word for me and it sounded, well, kinky, so I shook my head and ran away.

As far as the Con, My kids loved it. I loved it. My wife would have preferred about anything else but she obliged, allowing me to be amongst “my people” as she lovingly called the attendees.

So, I’m still a Con novice, but I’m gaining experience. I have attended a smaller con in Arizona and last year I went to Salt Lake Comic Con as a volunteer in the Word Fire Press exhibitor booth.

And today, I have returned one year later to that same Con of Cons to be amongst my Word Fire friends but this time I brought my son and I might even let him Cosplay. Because I’ve made it my mission as a dad to help my children have a better childhood than I had. That’s how we make the world a better place. My son knows what a Con is. He also knows that Salt Lake Comic Con is different (though it is of similar pronunciation) than Phoenix Comicon or San Diego Comic-Con. And there are a good many more Cons of comics and other great things.

Here’s a helpful list and for the sake of humanity, please take your children; after all they are our future.

Salt Lake Comic Con – August 31 – September 3, 2016

San Diego Comic-Con – July 21 – 24, 2016

Phoenix Comicon – June 2 – 5, 2016

Phoenix Comicon – Fan Fest Dec 4 – 6, 2015

Dragon Con (Atlanta) – September 2 – 5, 2016

2016 Worldcon hosted by MidAmeriCon II (Kansas City, MO) – August 17 – 21, 2016

Rose City Comic Con (Oregon) – September 10 – 11, 2016

World Fantasy Con 2015 (Saratoga Springs, NY) – November 5 – 8

World Fantasy Con 2016 (Columbus, OH) – October 27 – 30

Click here to see a bunch more

I volunteer with the Boy Scouts, play and write music, and enjoy everything outdoors. I’m also a novice photographer.