The Rise of Genre Fiction

Fellow blogger and Author Elizabeth Baxter has a post up over at the Indy Book Blog about the Rise and Fall of Genre Fiction.  I think she offers a good glimpse at it but really there is so much left unsaid.

I shall take this opportunity, dear readers, to say it.

The question of the day:  "What the heck is it with everyone being into Genre Fiction?  How did True Blood become mainstream?  Why do we have everyone and their cousin watching Game of Thrones?  And how can you crack a joke about BDSM at a craft show and everyone laugh it off?"

The answer put forth by Baxter is that it has to do with the global depression.  So summarize- nah that'll take to long, let me sum up: the world sucks, people know the world suck, so they want to get as far away from the world as they can.  Nothing like escaping to Westeros, or to the towers of Grey Enterprises to forget about how far behind on your car payments you've slipped.  Why read about courtroom dramas and political in fighting when you can turn on CNN, MSNBC or FoxNews and get the exact same story, played out as though a cheap hack of a writer were coming up with the predicable and convoluted plots?

Speaking of which, seriously?  If I wrote a political drama I would not have named the guy Wiener.   Just, ya know, sayin'.  A dude needs some cred, amirite?

But I think Baxter only skirts the start of the deeper roots.

Finals - On a Break

When I started this blog I was pretty good about getting out two posts a week. As this is intended to help further my writing career I was also very careful to only write on my time from my own computers. That meant no writing at work. Unfortunately with final exams and end of year pushes to wrap up I just can't find the time to do proper blog posts as I'd like. I also have picked up, I believe, some underage readers so it's even more critical that I keep my ducks in a row and only write on my time, of which I have none between now and the end of class.

So, I'm officially going on brief sabbatical to finish up the school year and then ramp up for the summer's writing season. Do stay tuned. I'll be officially announcing the launch of my summer Web Novel as my first post after this short vacation.

Until then, have a nap on me.

An Honorary Gentleman

With the ePublication of FantastiCon, I was invited to write a post about the process at a blog I follow:  Mindless Diversions, a sub blog of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen.

The story of a novel

Today I joined the ranks thousands of writers and made my first full length novel available for purchase on Amazon.com.  How did I go from a simple school teacher to a self-published writer?  The story has some interesting twists and a few lessons for the novice, though I hardly consider myself an expert on writing or self publishing.

It started with National Novel Writing Month back in 2007.  I set out to write a stalker drama playing on elements of online relationships and how little we know about the people we say we know via online channels.  That year I failed to meet my goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month.  In 2008 I tried again but with a twist:  I set the entire story at a massive fantasy and science fiction convention.  My wife and I are several year veterans of Atlanta’s Dragon Con and have become friends with many who make their hobby doing the convention circuit.  On Dec 1st, 2008 I had a manuscript in hand.

You can read the rest here on the website...