Writing Monsters (and other resources) Review

October has arrived and Halloween is only a few short weeks away, so I thought it would be appropriate to talk a little bit about monsters. Well, writing monsters to be exact. As mentioned in last week's writing update post, I told everyone that I would be talking about some writing resources I bought off Writer's Digest.

I bought a two e-book bundle and a webinar on world building. The two books were, "Writing Monsters: How to Craft Believably Terrifying Creatures to Enhance Your Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction," and, "Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction: How to Create Out of this World Novels and Short Stories."

Both books were authored or co-authored by Philip Athans, author of Baldur's Gate and former editor at Wizards of the Coast. When looking at his vast experience in the science fiction and fantasy world, from a novel and game perspective, I thought he would have some great advice on how to create stronger works in those genres. I was correct.

Each book tells you exactly what to expect from it right in their title, no detours. I haven't finished either book because its only been a week, but from the little I have read of each I learned quite a bit.  From, "Writing Monsters," I learned how to see monsters as metaphors. Ironically, that is what drew me to getting this bundle in the first place. It helped me think differently how I approach creating monsters that fill a world, regardless of genre.

Creatures often occupy the horror, fantasy, and science fiction worlds, but they can occupy every other genre if we let them. From a child's pet to a towering giant, creatures (and by extension, monsters) should be in stories to create depth. Using metaphors is a unique way of doing that.

The other book, "Writing Fantasy & Science Fiction," was a great resource on how to develop a world and story construction, allowing to go back to basics on how to craft a living breathing world and the story inside it. It was also a spectacular reference for key elements in fantasy and science fiction stories that often go overlooked like: Economy, Religion, Government, etc.

Even as I worked on short stories, I often found myself having questions about these elements and it slowed down my writing process. The book helped me, especially for science fiction and fantasy stories, think about the story takes place in first in order to better craft a complete story. 

It doesn't need to be done by everyone because each person has their own process, but for me it was a great help.

In regards to the webinar about world building, I decided to hold off on viewing it until I finishing reading both books as I feel the webinar may be a greatly complimentary piece to the reading.

Overall, my early impressions of these books are extremely positive and I will be sure to continue to use them in the future as I try to create more engaging stories. The books also gave me a great idea for a short story (that and the beautiful fall weather). My goal this month is to have this short story completed before Halloween and released for everyone to view.

I will keep people posted on the progress and where it can be read on the next few blog posts this month.

Until next week, keep writing everyone! -J.J.

Writing Update #3 - I Won Something!

Another update post about my writing work. I have recently submitted a short story for a superhero anthology through Meerkat Press. Meerkat Press is an independent publisher put of Atlanta that works on a variety of fictional work. They are also running a IndieGoGo campaign to help with some of their costs associated with publishing a short story anthology.

Whether or not my story is selected for the anthology, I am excited to see what stories will be in it.

Honorable Mention - Love Came Down

A few months back, I mentioned in passing that I won an honorable mention award through Writer's Digest for their annual writing competition. Yesterday, I received my first award for the short story, Love Came Down!

This is my first award I have ever received for my writing (unless you consider writing to be its own reward, then I have several). It is great to receive this recognition and I hope to continue to create more stories that are even better. I am still sending this short story out to a few other short story magazines and publishers, so it will be a while until it goes on the website. If it does get accepted by another publisher, I would need to let them retain a majority of the rights to the work until the end of the contract.

As far as my novel, I am still going to agents and publishing houses, but I want to focus on an agent first before I jump into a publishing house that may not be my first or best choice. I am also still considering self-publication through an e-book, but the costs involved are more than I initially anticipated.

I also purchased a writing bundle and webinar from Writer's Digest website about world building and creating monsters. I will speak at bit more about these resources in a review next week.

Until next week, keep writing everyone! -J.J.

Writing Update

Today's post will be an update (different from the newsletter) on my short story and novel progress.

This last week was incredibly busy, but productive. I made some progress on two short stories: One nerd romance (in honor of Comic Con) and one Sci-Fi story. Both stories, once completed, will make some rounds to different short story publishers for potential publication. If neither of the stories get published, I may consider posting them either to the website or create a free e-book. I find it important that stories are created and read by others. Stories are meant to do one of these three things:

• Inspire
• Entertain
• Educate

If it accomplishes one of those its good, but if it accomplishes all three its great! Would it be great to get paid for creating stories? Of course! However, I feel it is more important that stories are read and shared with others.

For my novel, I finished a rough draft in December of last year and I have progressed through several drafts and a few trusted beta readers to get the novel ready to pursue agent representation. What people won't tell you is that a polished draft is only the start! Another step in the adventure for publication is getting an agent and to get an agent's interest is through crafting a query letter.

A few months ago, I attended a webinar through Writer's Digest titled Focus on Young Adult Fiction: Writing a Strong Young Adult Novel and Crafting the Query Letter. The webinar, as the title spells out pretty well, focused on constructing query letters for Young Adult and Middle Grade novels. The presenter of the webinar was Marie Lamba. Marie Lamba is a literary agent at Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency. The webinar was a great opportunity to learn about the Young Adult and Middle Grade industry and the insights on how the market is moving now was invaluable. As a part of the webinar, participants were able to send in their query letters for review and edits. I had been working on my query letter for a couple of months for my unpublished novel and I decided to get some professional advice.

Last Wednesday, I received some positive feedback and edits on my query letter. It was amazing to see some professional input on a query letter and how to create a tighter, more compelling query letter. I didn't have much time to look through the edits last week, but I plan to take a closer look this week and continue to sharpen the query letter for the next couple of weeks. 

So, that is my update on my writing projects and I hope to share some of my writing projects with everyone soon. On Friday, I will be posting a review of the movie Suicide Squad. I have been hearing word about some poor reviews by critics, but I would like to withhold judgement until I actually see it for myself.