Writing How-To’s for Fun and Profit

Guy Anthony De Marco The Writing Process 1 Comment

I have many author friends who get burned out after writing a book-length collection of short stories or a novel. They start dreading their next project, having just toiled away for weeks or months.
“Why not cleanse your palate by writing a non-fiction book,” I’d ask. After some grumbling bout how tough it is to write non-fiction, some actually do give it a try—and they add to their published bibliography and, sometimes, their bank account.

Everyone has something they like to do, or they have some special knowledge that they think is too mundane to do anything with it. For example, I have an ancient hand-written notebook of recipes from my great-grandmother and grandmother. This was at the turn of the 19th century, before refrigeration and electricity were commonplace on farms, through the Great Depression and the first World War. They didn’t waste anything back in those days. Actually, there’s a cookie recipe in there specifically for milk that had spoiled. Yes, they are delicious and they don’t smell like rancid milk.

I’m going to take those old recipes and put them together in a period cook book, padding them out with some recipes from my dearly departed mother and my brother, Gilbert, who is quite the accomplished chef. His pumpkin cheesecake is to die for. Gilbert will be a co-author, as will the rest of the family.

I used to be in the Information Technology field for 37 years. I have a large collection of installation guides I wrote for software installation, as well as server installation and maintenance. I’ve been putting out short how-to guides under a pseudonym for a while, and combined they provide a nice revenue stream to support a charity I selected. That pseudonym is now seen as an expert in the field, even though he technically doesn’t exist.

You have plenty of things you enjoy doing, I’m sure. For example, if you enjoy being the Dungeon Master for your local Dungeons and Dragons group, consider publishing your homemade modules using one of the open, generic gaming systems. A great place to find samples is to visit DriveThruRPG.com and look for some of the freebie modules. I’ve published a couple of books back in the 1980’s with some of my unique items, creatures, traps, and modules. I have over 300 that have been used during the years I played consistently. In fact, consider designing your very own game, possibly centered around gaming systems like Savage Worlds or Pathfinder, or even one of the open-source gaming systems.

I enjoy target shooting, so I wrote a short tutorial under a pseudonym for authors who want to have additional realism added to their gun-wielding characters. I’ve also produced books on topics ranging from how authors can use QR Codes to improving your WordPress author website.

All of these are things I do anyway for fun, so by taking the time to write things down, organize them into a coherent work, and then convert and publish, I get to have another book for my revenue stream and to increase my authoritative stature in my chosen fields. Sometimes, it even brings in a trickle of funds. Enough trickles can eventually combine into an Amazon-sized river. (See what I did there?) I have also collected articles together and either used them as a giveaway on my blog (combined into PDF, ePub, and Mobi versions), or sold them for a very low price, such as 25 cents using Amazon’s price-matching system. Other times I use them as a fund-raiser for charities.

If you need a break, consider writing something non-fiction. After it’s published, you’ll feel refreshed and ready to tackle that 500-page tome of fantasy you’ve been contemplating.

Finding Your Aha! in Non-Fiction Writing

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills The Writing Process No Comments

Welcome to November – it’s non-fiction month!

Writing stories – that’s what we do, most certainly! Then there are those non-fiction things that we’re forced to write to sell the creative. Back jacket book blurb, synopsis, query letter – which is the most frustrating one for you? Or, are they all understandably so? We’ll get some tips on those as well as cool information on things like ghost writing, blogging, writing grants and understanding those pesky editorial mark ups. Just to make it all easier and to make more sense, Adria Laycraft, our guest on Tuesday November 4th, will talk about the difference between fiction and technical writing.

No matter what we write, there is story to be found, even in non-fiction and our November 16th guest, Billie Milholland will tell us about that. There is even money to be made with nonfiction, as Guy Anthony De Marco, Colette Black and guest Tereasa Maille will show us.

I must confide that sometimes I find it very difficult to switch from writing pure fiction to writing the technical stuff especially when it comes to promoting my own work. But I’ve come to realize that I’m quite comfortable translating the technical/scientific to people. I see stories in whatever I write. As a speaker, on business planning, agricultural marketing and food safety/food science, that’s a great skill to have. I always can find the stories in the science and business to translate into easily accessible information. When I understood the story, understood my audience and what they needed, and how they needed to hear it, magic happened. The aha! moments abounded, faces furrowed with confusion would grin and light up. People became excited about the possibilities for they could now see themselves as part of the story.

That makes non-fiction writing much the same as fiction writing – there is a story to tell, there is information, ideas, feelings to communicate. The language and the rules may be slightly different but it always comes down to story.

So, I’m looking forward to November. Anything, any hint or aha! that helps me convey the non-fiction better is awesome. I hope you have fun with it too!

And as a special treat, Fictorian Greg Little will be launching his new book Unwilling Souls. Watch for that blog – it promises to be good!

Flashes of Halloween

Horror Reading No Comments

As a token of appreciation for our readers and fans, we present a series of flash fiction stories to entertain and scare you. We hope you enjoy them, as does that ghostly figure reading this over your shoulder…

 

Steaks

Guy Anthony De Marco

Bob hated driving ‘cattle’ trucks. He liked the cargo, but the other drivers drove him mad. Soccer moms cutting him off on their way to the hairdressers and belligerent teenagers flipping him off all contributed to Bob’s loathing of city dwellers. He held his tongue for years, biding his time.

On Bob’s final run, the day he’d retire, he made a detour towards the old Quonset hut on his property. He would butcher and freeze this load to keep him in steaks for months, maybe years.

As he turned the crowded schoolbus into his driveway, he began to drool.

Once in a Lifetime Opportunity

Pamela K. Kinney

 

“Want a unique experience?” asked the woman in a tight mini dress and stiletto heels.

The man grinned. “What do you have in mind?”

“Something I know you never had done to you before and can only be done once.”

He followed her down an alley. They stopped beneath a sickly yellow light.

The man said, “I’ve done every sexual position you can imagine.”

“This is not about sex.”

The prostitute vanished, replaced by a monster. Before he could escape, it ate him.

Costumed as the human woman again, the monster patted her belly. “Now, you experienced being my meal.”

Troubles

Guy Anthony De Marco

 

“All right, you horrible jerk.”

The Mrs. is pissed off at me again. I rack my brain, trying to think of what she could have discovered. My mistress died suddenly, so she couldn’t have squealed about our affair. Nobody saw me hit the crippled guy with my car last year.

She’s not crying, so it has nothing to do with the jerk she was having an affair with while I was at work. I killed him too.

“Okay, I give. What did I do this time?”

She held up a severed, partially gnawed woman’s hand.

“I thought you were on a diet, dear?”

 Trick Or Treat

Frank Morin

He hated Halloween, with all those grasping, selfish children.

This year he prepared a special treat.  The children would gobble them down, not even tasting the ricin.  They’d die painfully in a few days, and no one could ever trace the source of the deadly toxin back to him.

Halloween night, he hosted a party of dear friends, but when he went to fetch the bowl of poisoned chocolate, he found it filled with different candy.

His wife called, “Give the brats the cheap stuff.”

“Where are my chocolates?”

“Gone,” she laughed.  “They were the hit of the party.”

After the Crossroads

Mary Pletsch

I am sorry, my friend…but you are a mother too.  You will understand—I couldn’t leave my daughter alone.   You often said how you couldn’t comprehend what I was going through, watching my little girl wither away.

You would not have laughed at me if I had told you that in my desperation I had gone down to the crossroads with four black candles and a Club Pack of chicken breasts, $4.99 per pound on sale.  You would not have made fun of my sacrifice.  You would have known that even at that price, I would be skipping meals for the rest of the week.

You, if anyone, would have held my hand as I invoked Him.  You would have reassured me.  You would have told me there was no fault in trying.

The next morning my daughter drank from the bottle He gave me in exchange for the soul of the head of the house.  My friend, I am so sorry…  On my way to the hospital I walked past my own door and drew the mark on yours.

I will watch over your sons as you would have watched over my daughter, had the situation been reversed.

Vultures

Guy Anthony De Marco

The lines were longer than expected. It took a while to dock with the geosynchronous auction house, where robotic transports shuttled bidders to the main deck. The inner wall of the doughnut-shaped vessel displayed flashes of upcoming items; the outer gave the occupants a view of incoming ships.

Hun-Rey appreciated the attention to detail provided by the auctioneers. Disposable holo-vids of the major pieces, organic foods, and many intoxicating beverages — the house expected to pull in big numbers.

Most of the elite stopped by, pumping each other for inside information. Hun-Rey greeted each one, and divulged misinformation with a smile. He was a professional, a bidder with clairvoyance and charm.

A small bell tolled three times, and the auction began.

“Today we have a rarity. One certified dead world, with many antiquities intact. We will start with item one, a tubular underwater vehicle with all sixteen nuclear weapons unfired…”

Leftovers

Kristin Luna

The tabby strolled down the steps, weaving between the banisters. She hadn’t been fed for days, and her short hair began to suck to her body to display her ribs.

When she reached the ground level of her domicile, she peered into the kitchen and sat on her haunches. She stared at her owners sitting still in their chairs. She approached the youngest one that usually had bits of leftover breading from chicken fingers or cheese or cookie bits stuck to her fingers. She smelled the little fingers, but there was only the smell of acrid pickles. All the same, she rubbed against the little fingers and the rope end that dangled from the girl’s wrists.

She quickly passed by the one with the slick, black shoes that kicked her often and went straight for the one in the slippers and nightgown who poured her cat food every morning. She rubbed against the slippered feet, but again, was given no pats or rubs in return.

Demanding as she was, the feline jumped up to the table, as the action demanded attention in the past. But no one batted her away or placed her back down on the floor. Her presence unprotested, the cat sniffed a puddle of a strange liquid, and paused. She looked at the pool as if considering. But after a moment had passed, the tabby bent her head farther and drank from it anyway. At first slowly, the reddish brown coagulations catching on her tongue, and the sharp flavor different from water or milk. But the tabby was hungry, and this red milk would have to do.

Wrapping Up October (Mummy-Style!)

Guy Anthony De Marco The Writing Process No Comments

We’ve had a heck of a scary month at the Fictorians. Halloween is tomorrow, when the undead and the kiddies wander around playing trick-or-treat. Earlier this month, we had the real horror — presidential debates and political congressional hearings took over the airwaves. It’s Christmas for folks who love dark fiction and black humor.

We’ve heard from wonderful guest authors this month, such as Nicole Cushing, Tonya De Marco, Matthew Warner, Petra Klarbrunn, Pamela K. Kinney and Annik Valkanberg.  Some of them appeared for first time on the Fictorians. We’ve learned all about writing horror and dark fiction from the usual suspects, plus how to mix genres together, get romantic with the dark side, and even channeling dark periods in one’s life into fiction.

Next month, we’ll be concentrating on writing non-fiction, including query letters and blurbs.

For the first time on the Fictorians, tomorrow on Halloween we have a treat for you. After you’re back from raiding the candy stores of your neighbors, curl up under a blanket, munch on a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and visit us for some flash-fiction scary stories from the Fictorians and their friendly honored guests.