Let Me Tell You About My TERRIBLE PAST...

Lately I’ve been watching a lot of shows... which I know is what people say writers SHOULDN’T do. But when there are people who keep telling me, “You HAVE to watch [insert popular show title here]!” it does tend to get in the way sometimes.

So I tried giving this one show a shot. I’m not going to name names, but let’s just say that it pretends to focus on a female protagonist but wastes too much time on Generic McBlandpants White Male Lead #7638743.

McBlandpants is just that: Bland. He’s boring in every sense of the word, from his character, personality, to even the actor himself. I don’t like knocking on anyone’s appearance, since there’s nothing that the person can do about that, but... I blame the casting choice for picking someone so phenomenally dull to watch. Which is disappointing when the female lead is so much more interesting, but she’s constantly being pushed into a position where she is being told to “Wait here while I go ahead and do man stuff even though you’ve proven to be totally more capable than me!”

By the second episode, I continued to roll my eyes until they were flying out of my skull when he began to reveal his “tragic childhood backstory”. That’s when I just shut off the TV and went back to letting YouTube videos play while I got some work done.

Then it made me realize something: This show is not the first one to try and made a bland character seem more “interesting” by giving them a tragic childhood. Not by miles. Another one I watched recently did the same thing to another Generic McBlandpants White Male Lead #7638742, and it didn’t make me like that character any more, either.

I started to compare it to Criminal Minds (yes, another TV show. I am so sorry), because the characters are already interesting before you learn anything about where they came from. You can know nothing about their past, but they’re still fun to watch because of how the characters bounce off each other, and how the actors portray them. There could literally be an episode where they just hang out and make spaghetti and I’d still be engaged enough to watch the whole thing.

This is relevant to writing as well: A character’s history should only be as interesting as the character themselves. It’s fun to learn more about a character, but unless you’re actually invested in them, then telling us about how they watched their childhood friend drown in a river when they were only eight years old falls a little flat. I’m not going to care about a character simply because they had a hard life.

Give me a reason to actually like them. Don’t just copy and paste a wishy-washy sad yarn and think that’ll make them more relateable, because it won’t. I see people do this with rape trauma as well, but that’s a whole other rant altogether that I won’t go into now.

What I normally do, myself, is create a character first. After I’ve nailed down their personality, I work a story around them to help me better understand the way they think and feel. This helps me create a character whose life doesn’t revolve around their abusive parents, but grew or developed as a result of it.

Because, like any normal person, you shouldn’t allow a character to be defined by their tragedies.

Meal, Ready-to-Eat: A Review

For those of you who (somehow) don’t know, MREs = Meal, Ready-to-Eat. It’s a type of light field ration usually given to soldiers in active combat.

Having an older brother in the Marine Corps when I was a kid, we actually got quite a few of these MRE packages. Me and my sister would actually eat them for the hell of it, because some of them aren’t as bad as some images may imply. I’ll even admit that some do look like the personification of turds, but I’m someone who can put my visual bias aside and try a thing at least one time before I cast judgment.

You only live once, right?

A few months ago, my brother-in-law (who, like both of my siblings, are in the military) saw me looking at one of the MRE packages on the guest bedroom bed, and asked if I wanted to have it. With the caveat from my sister not to eat it all at once (like we did when we were dumb kids), because one package is supposed to sustain a solider for an entire day. Oops.

Either way, I was like, “Sure, why not?” It’s been a while, and writing a lot about military characters, I figured it might be good to refresh my memory.

Incidentally, a friend — I can’t remember who — asked me to document my experience and tell them about it. Since I can’t remember who, I took a bunch of pictures and decided to make a public post about it.

So here we go.

WARNING:
This post is full of spiders images!

Writing With Depression

Most people wouldn’t think it, but the last few months I have been living in my own little circle of Hell. Not in the way that you would notice just by looking at me upon first glance, at least not right away. It happened in little strokes, little itches, little digs; festering like a scab that I couldn’t help but pick at unconsciously.

When I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with depression. But when you’re a that age, it’s a challenge to differentiate depression from teenage angst, so of course it got cast aside by both mine and my mother’s lack of acknowledgement for mental health. As I got older, the feelings didn’t disappear. In fact, they became something else. Like the scab, a series of unfortunate events shaped them into an incurable mark.

Depression is a hard thing to explain to people who don’t have it. In a way, I’m grateful for that. I wouldn’t wish the things I think and feel on anybody. The best examples I can give are provided by the talented Allie of Hyperbole and a Half, who authored Adventures in Depression Part One and Two. Additionally, Depression Quest is a scarily accurate depiction of what life is like living with this insidious disease.

But it doesn’t explain what life has been like for me personally. It doesn’t chronicle the aforementioned Hell that I’ve been living in, on repeat, for years if not my whole life. It’s different for everyone and yet it’s all the same — we’re living with monsters in our heads that are slowly trying to kill us. And for some, the monsters win. It’s a long and grueling battle, and one that no one should have to suffer alone.

Crowdfunding Campaign #2

So I just started another crowdfunding campaign. My last one wasn’t very successful, and it may be partially due to the way Gofundme works in that you’re practically transparent until you’ve hit a certain milestone of donations.

I don’t like begging. It’s my least favorite thing to do. I’d been raised with the mentality that asking for help is a sign of weakness, and admitting that weakness makes you a lesser person. But the way I see it, I’m not begging for handouts. I’m raising awareness of my creative efforts by rewarding people for their generosity with something in return.

In the indie world, I’ve been told that you don’t really start reeling in a profit until you’ve at least hit your third book. I’m almost done with Seraphim Storm, the second installment of the PROJECT SERAPHIM series. Additionally, I have a prequel novel lined up, as well as other short stories and novellas that I would like to see the light of day sometime in the near future.

No one ever said it was going to be easy, and I had no illusions in my mind that it would be. Despite being a writer, I’m not particularly well-spoken, and I’m only just learning about my new-found confidence in my abilities.

Are there days where I want to just say “fuckit” and throw in the towel? Of course. It’s normal to have those moments of so-called weaknesses. But life is short, and I can’t waste it away with the regret of never following my dreams, doing the thing I love.

That said, if you have any time or money to spare, drop a few dollars into my crowdfunding page on IndieGogo. If you don't cash, then spread the word via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, or anything in the crazy social media world.

Every little bit helps. :)

Why I Decided To Write A Series

As I’ve mentioned before, PROJECT SERAPHIM had originally been planned as a standalone novel. A very gargantuan novel that rivals many tomes. But my stubborn side refused to have it any other way, even when published authors had advised me against it. I had no major reason for it, other than convincing myself that it just was not necessary.

But when did I start to have second thoughts? What made me decide to throw in the proverbial towel and write a series?

It was after I had committed myself to dividing my sci-fi/horror tome into a duology — two books — that reality smacked me in the face.

RRW's Top 10 Books

Recently I was tagged on Facebook to list my top 10 books that have influenced my life in some way.

Considering I was spending more personal time offline than than on Facebook, I didn't get the chance to tack away. But now I'm able, and since then have decided that the list was important enough to me to put on my blog, with a few additional details that weren't on my original post.

That said, here they are!

1. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

There's something about Vonnegut's style that just jives with me. I also have very fond memories of this book from my days in high school, more specifically my classes with my English teacher. In fact, I still have that gut reaction to think or blurt "So it goes" when something/someone dies.

In which case, so it goes.

2. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

This book made me cry. It made me cry a lot.

I didn't care that much for "journal-styled" novels even back then, but Flowers for Algernon struck a cord in me that I can't ever quite describe. So much so that I wound up naming a character after the titular lab rat, Algernon.

3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

I know I'm naming a lot of old books that many of us were assigned to read in high school English, and there's a good reason for that: They're just downright damned good books. And I think a lot of kids can benefit reading them and, better yet, learn to enjoy them.

Fahrenheit 451 was different, though - I didn't read it because of a class assignment. I actually read it out of spite over not getting into the advanced English class in my freshman year, though I believed I deserved to. After all, I liked the required reading for the advanced classes better than the standard class that I was assigned to.

I read Fahrenheit 451 not out of necessity because my teacher told me to, but because I wanted to. And it inspired me to seek out more books - by Ray Bradbury included - outside of the classroom. Since then he's become one of my favorite writers.

Rest in peace, Ray.

PROJECT SERAPHIM: RELEASE DATE

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

Everyone has their writing weaknesses.  Mine has always been the beginning.

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times SERAPHIM ASCENT in particular has been written, rewritten, and ultimately gutted. Needless to say it’s gone through quite a monstrous transformation over the years, with a rather challenging opening to boot.

Fortunately, I am feeling confident enough to share my prologue over in my author blog in celebration of having the necessary to publish this damn book.

Yaaay!

P.S. No you are not going insane. I have, in fact, changed the URL for my blog today, for professional reasons and not just to mess with you and/or ruin all of my links now. Oops!

One for the LGBTeam

Let me tell you something.

I think the whole “scoring points for LGBT” thing I see people say so often these days is stupid. Yes, this is a thing that exists. I’ve seen people use this term quite often, in fact.

By LGBT points I mean: When characters in media are portrayed as gay, lesbian, bi, or trans, it’s obviously just a half-assed attempt of the creator(s) to garner an audience or ratings - or all of the above. That it’s often seen as “unnecessary” for a character to be gay and there’s no way that they’re doing it for any reason than to get attention because that’s totally how the creative process works.

And I hate it when people act like a scorecard is necessary for any of these less-than-often portrayed characters in media, because all the same it discourages creators from portraying these types of characters. Writers shouldn’t feel remiss about including a gay or lesbian character in their story because they’re worried people might accuse them of trying to connect with the LGBT crowd.

All I have to say is: Why does this have to be seen as such a negative thing? When straight characters are portrayed in media, no one accuses the writers of trying to score any points with the “heterosexual crowd”, so why should it be any different for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender? Or any of the minority for that matter. No one should feel pressured to avoid risks or following their creative path simply because people will judge them for “not understanding” what it feels to be that minority, or whatever.

Here’s a secret, and it might come off as a total shock to people, but hear me out.

ENOUGH With The Comedic Relief!

Please... no more...

The other day I finally ripped off the Frozen band-aid, so to speak. I know you’re probably not here to read my opinions on Disney movies, but rest assured this isn’t some kind of review. It’s just that certain things grated my nerves. Something that extends far beyond whatever beef I had with this particular movie. It wasn’t even a matter of trying to pinpoint what it was, because it became blatantly obvious the moment it reared its ugly bucktoothed head into the story.

Since Frozen was out all I kept hearing from friends was how Olaf, this goofy-looking snowman character, was not as “annoying as I thought he’d be”. Once I finally decided to give the film a chance, I wondered “What if I actually wind up liking Olaf?”

Spoilers: It didn’t happen. Here’s why.

Nothing pisses me off more than comedic relief characters. Characters that serve no other purpose other than to bounce around the screen making humorless jokes. Characters that could simply be written out of the script and nothing would change. Throughout the movie I was thinking to myself just how much these scenes would’ve been impacted had Olaf not been written into the script, and here’s the thing – I got nothing. Literally nothing would’ve changed, save for the removal of an obnoxious musical number and maybe a scene towards the end that could’ve been easily altered without his presence.

David the Dinosaur

Wow, sure has been a few months since I updated.

I wish I had some long-winded subject to talk about, but I really have to kick myself in the butt to get started on the sequel to the first book I'm trying to publish.

To motivate myself, I did a quick little Photoshop of one of the characters from said novel, David the Dinosaur.

You know. For fun. :)

Spoilers: He's not really a dinosaur.

Seraphim in 13 Years

When talking about my first novels, people had asked me, "So are you going to write it as a series?"

So, what did I usually tell them?

"No, it's just a singular novel! I refuse to write a series! Stop asking me that," I exclaimed adamantly upon finishing my second novel ever back in the year 2001.

(I was 15-years-old and knew so little.)

"I will not conform! Let me write my 360k-word manuscript in peace!" I still said while finishing the second draft back in 2005.

"Are you happy now? You convinced me to split this story up into a duology," I finally said during the outlining and writing stages of the third and final rewrite in 2012.

"Fine, why not. Trilogies are the in thing, aren't they?" I threw my hands up when I conformed in 2013.

"I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I AM DOING ANYMORE!" I scream to the heavens in 2014, while divising that I write a much longer series than initially intended well over a decade ago.

I Hate Writing Sequels

I really hate writing sequels.

There, I said it.

When I first started writing novels, I'd have rather written a 400k-word tome than to split it up into separate novels, no matter how much more cost-efficient that would have been for me. I'd been told by several people before "You should write a series!" and I was so adamantly against it. No way, no how.

Why?

For one thing, it's difficult trying to find an appropriate cutoff point that would contain just enough of a climax that would leave both the writer and reader satisfied, but not too much because you want them to read the next book and learn where the story and characters are going next. And in that case I'm not so much writing a sequel, but a continuation to a really long novel, which was the problem I faced when writing just a singular really long novel - it's just a lot of pages to print, and a lot to read, and ain't nobody got time for that.

Plus, I don't know about you, but holding big books tend to hurt my wrists.

Secondly, how much paraphrasing is necessary without sounding like I'm just awkwardly summing up events from the previous novel? Should I just figure that people have read it and carry on with business as usual, or do I assume that they assume that each book is a standalone? Should I offer a brief description of the previous novel somewhere in the prose, and where? At the beginning? Of course not the beginning, because your readers don't want to read pages upon pages of information before cutting to the action - that's just too much, and there's not a faster guarantee that they'll put the book down than info-dumping them into your world. Then should the information be littered throughout the book instead? How do you do that without confusing new readers?

Now that I think about it - an author that I greatly admire, Tad Williams, had written up a rather lengthy synopsis for each of his installments in his Otherland tetralogy (if you haven't read those books, I totally recommend it to any science fiction/fantasy fan). But I don't think I've honestly seen another writer do something like this before.

Bottom line is that because of this, I have never finished writing a sequel before. I've started writing sequels, but there was always that point where I would stop for whatever reason. It's kind of nonsensical, really, because in the whole noveling process I have always loved rewriting. Don't ask me why, I just love that feeling of seeing "old friends" again, so rewriting is more of a treat to me than a chore. And you'd think that writing sequels would be the same thing, right? But as we speak, I am already rewriting most of the 90k words I had written for the sequel to Seraphim Ascent last year, simply because of the length of the duology-turned-trilogy (and who knows? Maybe I'll be hit by a line drive to the face and there will be even more books than that).

So, not-moral of the story: Have I found a dead set solution to my Sequel Dilemma yet? No. Mostly because, like I said, I have never finished a "sequel" before. I've only started sequels that I never finished. But while I am currently in the process of doing one right now (which is ironic, considering I haven't even published my first novel yet), I am finding myself faced with tracking down that balance of standalone and info-dump, both which I think are bound to happen when writing a continuation one way or another.

Maybe it's time for me to break open some sequels and learn from other people.

All Work, No Play

Despite my age, I'll admit that I'm not terribly educated in the ways of social media. I used to write in my blog every day, but that was back in the days of LiveJournal when I was a teenager. Now? Not so much.

But I'm working on it, having set up a Twitter for all my professional stuff, among a variety of other things that are in the works. Honestly, I wonder how you writers are able to keep up with it all and still have time to write!

Once I got through the initial stages, I find myself taking a step back and looking at everything I have done and it's all starting to slow down, finally.

And now today I managed to successfully accomplish in something I have the most trouble with: Writing summaries. I don't know why, but I guess getting into the habit of telling people "I write crap" when giving my "elevator pitch" won't hack it in the indy writing world. The good thing was that it was surprisingly a lot of fun, and it even managed to put certain things into perspective while I was in the process of doing some finishing touches for my manuscripts.

For those curious, the summaries can be found here. Not bad for a first attempt, I guess.

So far Seraphim Ascent is semi complete and (I think) is ready to be sent off for beta. What the Thunder Said is still in its initial first draft stages, but I find I'm having a blast writing that. Something about going back to the early years of characters and spending some time with their childhood is just... not something I get to toy with on a regular basis.

More on that on a later date. For now, I've got work to do...

You're Good Enough

I've arguably accomplished a lot in my short time. Rather, I've written a lot for what some people would consider me at a young age. From short stories to novellas to whole novels, it's safe to say that I've written well over a million words up to this point in my life.

So it's no surprise that I am often asked the golden question: Are you published?

And I've felt silly to say my answer has been "No."

And why is that?