Well…hello, Substack
I think this may be the new home for my longer winded rants about reading and writing, while living on this bright blue pearl in the Milky Way.
Well…hello, Substack.
I think this may be the new home for my longer winded rants about reading and writing, while living on this bright blue pearl in the Milky Way.
So, if you want some thoughts into writing and some writing into thoughts, and a whole lot more shenanigans besides, this is the place where I will frequently be.
I will be sure to share some exclusives to my subscribers too, for you and only you.
I just went live on my TFF stream and said I was going to make my first Substack post, now, so I better deliver haha.
Firstly, if you are a fan of my writing, my sincerest thanks for that. I will be giving you insight into my writing life that I do not usually share, also news, and special looks into my writing that have not been put out there.
In March of this year I was very fortunate and humbled to have sold a short story to EM Magazine – a great fashion and art fusion magazine – and I now have my science fiction / horror tale, THE INK FROM MARS, of the first human to step foot on Mars (and how horribly wrong that goes) in print (and digital).
This story (which is even mentioned on the cover! *blushing) started a revival in my writing. I loved writing this story, loved everything about it. From the challenges of shifting to first person narrative (for the first time in years), to the research into what that first landing on Mars will look like and to the strain astronauts go through on their longer voyages and the toll that takes mentally, to the world building: writing this short story was So Much Freaking FUN!
I love to write novels, and though I have far more short stories published than books (one book published to date, but I am working to change that), my preference since I was 19 and pushed myself to complete my first novel, an awful thing at that – but I got it done, has been to write novel length works.
Sometimes I plan on writing something small and it grows. Sometimes I plan on writing a book and it just takes getting that perfect first sentence down to send me on my merry way, making much of it up as I go.
Most of my novels have had years of research involved in their creation, but I make few hard plans and I, as Stephen King says (paraphrasing here), let the characters live out their own story.
The short story is one of the greatest forms of literature in my opinion and is one of the most difficult to do well.
Ernest Hemingway’s HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS has and will forever humble me, influence me, and it sets an impossible bar of how impactful fictitious characters can be in a span of just a few pages.
I have done some shorts over the past few years, but not nearly as many as I used to. Because I continued to write, I did not let it bother me overmuch.
And then the idea for THE INK FROM MARS came to me.
I was enamored. And I had just read some great crime fiction from Hard Case Crime that was all in the first person, and I knew what I had to do, and I did it.
And so, I have a bevy of short stories in various stages and forms, from rough to polished, some are in pieces, some are only whispers of the song they will become, and a few are already blaring loudly as I seek print for them to spread their wings in.
Short fiction is taking me on a thrill ride right now, while I have a couple novels in progress and another finished that I may rewrite entirely, evolving the idea.
With such choices of different fiction to work on, I am elated.
And I am still writing poems, though I have not published one in a while.
And it all starts with reading.
I love to read, and I love to write book reviews for TFF, and I have read some great books lately.
UPGRADE by Blake Crouch blew my mind, as did PROJECT HAIL MARY from Andy Weir. Get your sci-fi on, folks.
AN UNKINDNESS OF MAGICIANS by Kat Howard was one I could not put down – it is dark contemporary fantasy with some horror and the second book of the series, A SLEIGHT OF SHADOWS, is out next week! I cannot wait (and yes, I reviewing this one, guys).
For some of the best shaped characters in a book about a mob war, Don Winslow has absolutely amazed me with CITY ON FIRE, the first in a series. Dogtown, Rhode Island is home to a shaky alliance between the Irish and the Italians. I have not finished this yet, but man oh man is it good!
Best,
~RJ