SITREP

This whole writing thing is a fairly new endeavor, though I have dabbled with it in the past. My first serious attempt was back about fifteen years ago when John Ringo was looking for submissions to put in an anthology he was working on at the time. My story got picked (along with a few others) but the anthology never came to pass. So it ended up on a promotional CD (back when those were a thing) and that was that.

About five years after that I made a real effort at writing my first manuscript and flailed around like an idiot, not having a single clue what I was doing. I wrote an unfinished work that clocked in at around 120,000 words, with no ending. I knew nothing about pacing, plot, or character arcs. In short… it was just a bunch of meandering. It was some kickass meandering, but meandering nonetheless.

Fast forward to about a year ago when my good friend and honest-to-goodness published author Doug Burbey told me to get off my ass and start writing. So this anthology was coming out and they were looking for submissions… so I did it… and it was accepted. It was a short story written under a pen name, and it got accepted. And I signed my first contract!

Another anthology was out there so I sent in a submission for that… and it also got (conditionally) accepted. Two scores in a row!

So I says to myself, “Self, why the hell aren’t you writing the book you’ve always been dreaming about writing?”

Do I finally did it. I dug in and did it.

I based it off an idea I had dreamed up about four years ago. Just a kernel of an idea really, and got going with it.

Oh, and along the way I started taking writing tutorials… so I could learn how to actually build a plot and stuff like that. You know… story-telling stuff.

So I finished it last December and sent it out to a bunch of beta readers. About thirty of them or so. That was interesting… to say the least.

Anyway, thanks to a few really quality folks who stuck in there and put forth a lot of effort, I went back and polished up the manuscript. And then I made some submissions.

To make a long story short, it got picked up and thus has begun a very exciting journey.

So for the last year I have been dedicating a lot of time to writing and I am stoked about it. Very stoked about it in fact.

Needless to say it’s been a fun ride so far, and I hope that you all will come with me and take part in the journey as well!