A Far Out Fantastic Site

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. Today I’m going to just limit my post to answering the optional question of the month. I was busy all weekend writing my own post for A Far Out Fantastic Site and was doing it up to the very Monday I had been trying to post on a weekly basis. However, as I said a while back, I’ve had to ease off of the weekly blog posts and just post every other week or so. In addition to that, I have to also be more flexible of when I post because shooting for Mondays would cause me to have to stay up until 3 AM on early Sunday mornings and so it had been causing me to lose sleep during the week and to stress out. So, the post will not always come out on a Monday, and it won’t always be every week but possibly every two weeks. I discuss it more...

  It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I apologise for posting so late again and having to double-up again between the IWSG entry and the weekly entry for A Far Out Fantastic Site. My excuse this time is that I had family from out of town visiting all week last week and so I got very little writing done. I was fortunate to fit in the little time that I had to at least plan this post and get some typing of revisions done for “Virtual Voodoo”, one of the many short stories to be included in my upcoming book, " Bad Apps "! I’ll talk about that story and the problem with long endings in a little bit. First let me start with the IWSG part of the post, which mostly consists of my response to the optional monthly question, in case anyone out there is not a scien...

I have a double-post for you today, since I missed posting Monday for the I don't know what n th time! So, I have the make-up post for this past Monday and Insecure Writer's Support Group (IWSG) post for this first Wednesday of the month—a two-in-one post. Every first Wednesday, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems to this monthly blog hop to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I also have an update on the upcoming newsletter and a little about an upcoming Stephen King movie.  IWSG: Being With the Characters in Books, TV and Movies Let's start with the IWSG post which mostly consists of my answer to the optional monthly question. So, the question for April is What fantasy character would you like to fight, go on a quest with, or have a beer/glass of wine with? I really can't think of a character who I would like to do any of these things with. Although I imagine myself in the stories that I read, I don't really fantasise about interac...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I missed posting on Monday, which is the day for my weekly blog post. I apologize for that; it was a busy and tiring weekend so I just wasn't up to blog writing. So, I'm doubling up on today's post with the IWSG topics and make-up for Monday’s missed post. For the IWSG, I have the optional question of the month, and a little bit of an accomplishment with my fiction writing I'd like to share. For the Monday make-up portion of the post, I have progress on my upcoming book of short fiction to share and some news about an upcoming change to my blog. So, keep reading! IWSG  Question of the Month So, starting with IWSG stuff, here's the question of the month: Is there a story or book you've written you want to/...

Credit: Wikimedia Commons Some of you may had noticed that I skipped posting back on the 4th of the month, as far as Monday posting goes. I posted for the IWSG blog hop that Wednesday and it didn't make up for that Monday's missed post since I said I had to keep it short. I had to reduce the writing during that week because, as I also said in that IWSG post, my mom passed away back in October and so that was the week of her funeral. I just got back on track earlier last week (Wednesday I think it was) and so that included returning to working on my fiction projects, namely my upcoming short story collection, "Bad Apps". Needless to say, I'm back on track with my weekly blog posts. So, I have some about my latest progress on "Bad Apps" and, in sci fi/fantasy news, about an upcoming graphic novel adaptation of a lost silent horror film that starred Lon Chaney Sr. Back On Track with ‘Bad Apps’ My short hiatus from my fiction writing wasn't really a ful...

Dunking for "Apps" instead of apples this Halloween!  Image Credit: Pixabay I was going to have for you a list of movies for watching this Halloween season. I was also going to include the countdown to the number of stories left to revise for my upcoming collection of short fiction, "Bad Apps". However, I, embarrassing as it is to admit, couldn't even remember the total number of stories that I was going to include in the book, not counting the bonus story that I announced in my last newsletter, “Night Creatures’ Call”. In that issue, I said the total number of stories to be collected in "Bad Apps", including the bonus, would be eight. Well, I combed through several papers in my writing folders and filing cabinet Saturday evening looking for the book’s written plan to find the exact number of stories. I couldn't find the plan anywhere. I don't know what the hell happened to it. It probably just got lost in the piles, possibly during that time I...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. The challenge I bring to today’s post is the answer to the optional question of the month which is: Have you ever written something that afterwards you felt conflicted about? If so, did you let it stay how it was, take it out, or rewrite it? My answer to the first part of that question is: yes, I have. The answer to the second part: I rewrote it. The conflicting part in my writing that I had to rewrite was in one of my recent stories that I’m working on for my upcoming book of short fiction, “Bad Apps”. This book will consist of stories about strange and deadly mobile apps. The story I had the challenge with involves a demonic creature from another universe that gets summoned through a music video. The creature is so chaotic and ev...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. Because this first Wednesday fell right after a holiday here in the US, Independence Day (AKA the Fourth of July), I've started this post late and so I'm just going to limit it to the optional question of the month. For those of you who celebrate it, I hope you all had a happy Fourth of July!  The question of the month is 99% of my [somebody’s, Alex’s?] story ideas come from dreams. Where do yours predominantly come from? Whenever I get asked a question like this my answer is always "life". Almost all authors’ work is influenced by their own life experiences and so that's what mine is based on.  However, within that life experience which consists of nearly a universe of experiences as all of our lives do, I hav...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. We have an optional question of the month provided to us by the good people who coordinate the IWSG blog hop (See below). But this month's question I'm going to answer and explain in most of today's post. And the question for April is: Do you remember writing your first book? What were your thoughts about a career path on writing? Where are you now and how is it working out for you? If you're at the start of the journey, what are your goals?   Well, that last part of the question doesn't pertain to me too much and so I’ll just answer the previous two parts. I’ve been writing and publishing at least since the late 2001s, if you count technical and non-fiction writing that I did for various websites. I wrote and s...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions.  Progress Made When Writing Fiction in Larger Timeslots Until around last Friday, I had a hell of a time fitting in time to do my fiction writing, particularly my upcoming book of short stories, titled "Bad Apps" . The cause of this was my day job which I have to make a two-hour public transit commute going and coming each day. I love my day job (I’m a library technician) and so won’t give it up, but it still takes up writing time. I don't work on my laptop on the bus or train because it's too awkward for me and so I would get less done than I would if I were writing in a more stationary place.  Lately I've had to fight my way to squeeze out a bare minimum of 20 minutes of fiction writing before going to work i...

Credit: Pixabay Today we have another guest blogger! May I introduce to you author Elizabeth Mueller ! I’m very grateful for Elizabeth to be with us this post. She is, as she puts it, “a diehard romance” writer yet has also written and published in other fiction genres, including science fiction and fantasy. She’s currently working on a dystopian sci fi / fantasy / romance novel which she’ll be sharing with us a segment from. Both a full-time author and a homeschooling mom of five kids, Elizabeth has contributed to several science fiction anthologies, including steampunk, while still writing in her favourite genre. Let me not delay any longer: here’s Elizabeth discussing her writer’s journey from speculative fiction to realist fiction, to romance!  Guest Blogger: Elizabeth Mueller Thank you for having me over at your lovely place, Steven! You’ve asked if I could talk about speculative fiction. To be honest, I’ve always wondered what that was and never tried to understand it as I’ve...

 It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. This month we have the question of the month here at the Fantastic Site and I have a few details about my story in progress (SIP) which will be included in my upcoming book of short fiction.  Question of the Month The question for August 3 is: When you set out to write a story, do you try to be more original or do you try to give readers what they want? My answer to that, is that when I write a story, I don't so much try to be more original as I try to write sincerely. That means when I write I often develop the story from an idea that I had jottted down in my journal way before hand as it came to me. To me it appears to be an original idea because if it didn't I wouldn't have bothered jotting it down (at least not for ...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions.  In this post I have my answer to the IWSG question of the month and then I talk about a current fiction writing problem I’m having--creating a monster character for a short story.   Making Books Into Audiobooks So, the April 6 question is Have any of your books been made into audio books? If so, what is the main challenge in producing an audiobook? I have never had any of my books made into audiobooks but plan to do so eventually. I consider myself overdue for it since audiobooks have a lot of advantages. One advantage is that they draw a bigger audience to your work. There are a lot of people out there who would like more time to read but their busy schedules limit them and so listening to a recording of a book during o...

Credit: Pixabay I've been working on my upcoming short fiction collection  all week but have been worn out too many times, mostly from a bad case of allergies and insomnia. When I would work on one of my short stories for the book, there were several times when I nearly fell asleep ready to drop my head on the keyboard. So, I'd just go to bed intending to get more done in the morning but once in bed I wouldn't be able to fall asleep. Isn’t that ironic? Maybe I should make the computer keyboard my bed from now on.  Well, there's some good news. Tuesday, I shared with my writer's critique group part two of "The Watch Party", one of the short stories that I’m including in my book. Compared to when the group critiqued part one several weeks ago, they didn’t have any problems with it. However, I did not factor in the changes suggested by the group from the last time. I've only done that for the first part so far. So, there's going to be some work that I...

  It’s the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writers Support Group (IWSG)  post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. Question of the Month The optional question of the month for April is: Are you a risk-taker when writing? Do you try something radically different in style/POV/etc. or add controversial topics to your work? Overall, I’m already set in my own style of writing which I can’t really define, it’s just that it’s my own personal style. So, I wouldn’t say I normally take risks. There are times where I will go to an extreme in writing a scene, making it perhaps more sexual or more graphically violent than I normally would. However, I think the most risks, or what comes close to them, that I take in my fiction is with my protagonists. I’ll sometimes have them do anti-heroic things just to develop the character and so make it more believ...