What Makes a Successful Writers Group?

by Sheryl Tuttle

Do you ever wonder what makes a writers group tick? Why some groups come together and stick, while others dissolve over time?

One of the keys to a successful group is communication. For example, with the Humble Fiction Café (HFC), we have easy, frequent, and honest communication between our members.

Easy communication

• One email sends to the whole group
• Yahoo group for uploading files; this is where we post stories, chapters, or poems for critique, as well as a place to share other information

Frequent communication

• Weekly meetings; approximately every other week the meetings are open to the public
• Regular email; emails are used for communications between meetings

Honest communication

• Written and/or verbal critique is offered highlighting strengths and weaknesses
• Critique is offered on the written piece, not the writer, and is intended to help the writer improve in the craft

Recently, members of HFC participated in an interview by John E. Murray, III with Story Institute. In the interview, we discuss the dynamics of our group and what it is we believe makes it work so well. We also talk about some of our projects, including the writing of Split. You can listen to the interview in its entirety at the Story Institute Rambling Verser – Episode 16.

What are some other characteristics of a good writers group? How and where do you go about finding one? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

New Post on Endings

by Sheryl Tuttle

Please visit my novel blog, Hope and Faith, where I've posted Six Common Types Endings, the information gleaned from an endings class given by Linda Lindsey of HFC. It was an outstanding class full of valuable insight, too good not to share!

The Proof is in the Pudding

by Sheryl Tuttle

The other day I found myself sitting on a bench with my youngest daughter’s BFF (Best Friend Forever). We were watching my daughter take a karate lesson, which gave the BFF and me plenty of time to talk. First we talked about karate. The BFF asked about the progression of the karate belt colors, getting tips placed on the belts, and preparing for belt tests. Then, we talked about gymnastics and other activities. Eventually, I found myself telling BFF that you can do anything you want if you just practice, and that the only way to get better with something IS to practice.

Hmm. Sounds like good advice for a 40-something year old wanna-be writer too. Actually, good advice for a writer at any age.

You may be familiar with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), where participating authors from all over write a 50,000-word novel in one month. For me last November, it translated into a lot of writing, much more than my usual daily quota. It provided an opportunity for a lot of writing practice.

Shortly after NaNoWriMo, I wrote a short story that had been a plague to me for some time. Calling the story a struggle is like calling a tiger tame, but nevertheless, I finally got the story down and finished. Fairly pleased with the story, I put it out for feedback.

As always, I received some great suggestions from my writers’ group friends on ways to improve the story. But the most memorable comment was from my mom. She simply said that she liked the story very much, and she could see my improvement from when I first started writing.

Wow. It felt so good to hear that my ability at this craft of writing was improving!

It’s true in writing, as in everything else of life, the more we do something – the more we practice – the better we get. After a full month of dedicated writing on my novel, the short story I completed afterwards WAS better than my previous work. The proof is in the pudding.

Armed with this knowledge, I look forward to writing more and better stories. Keep practicing!

When is your story not your story?

by Kelli D. Meyer

When you can't post it on your own web site, that's when.

I am extremely annoyed by an "accepted fact" in the modern world of publishing. It's a fact that publishers won't buy your work as unpublished if it's already appeared online in any form, including on your own blog. It doesn't matter whether ten people read it or ten thousand. Once it's been online, they'll only buy it as a reprint, if they'll buy it at all.

In my opinion, this is a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Publishers have made this decision to protect themselves from buying a story that's already been read by a large percentage of its potential audience. It's a decision that makes sense in some very specific cases. If you're Dean Koontz or Stephen King, and you post a novel on your web site for a year or so, the number of people who will buy that novel when it comes out in hardback may diminish. (Although even this is debatable.) In those cases, the publisher might be justified in paying a lower -- a.k.a. reprint -- rate for the work.

But what if you're not Koontz or King? What if you're me, or a member of my writing group, or just about any unknown writer in the world? How many people are really going to seek out and read stories we post on our own blogs or web sites? Enough to damage the story's money-earning potential if it's published? I don't think so.

So the result of this ridiculous rule is that writers have to leave their best stories hidden in file folders in order to have any hope of getting them published. Meanwhile, they're trying to establish a following, a readership, without sharing their best work.

My suggestion to publishers, should any of you out there be interested, is to change the "no reprints" rule to exclude publishing or posting on the authors' own web sites or blogs. Let authors show their stories off. Let readers discover new authors. Once they do, they'll spend more money on your books and magazines. Everybody wins.

The Lost Art of the Sail Makers

Our featured writer for this week is HFC founding member Gary Denton, who's many interest include digital music, producing short films, and novel writing. He is currently editing Good Hope, a 2007 National Novel Writing Month project that he hopes to forge into a publishable manuscript by July.


Last September, hurricane Ike, the third most destructive storm to make landfall in US history, devoured Galveston Island. Ike’s twelve foot storm surge raised the iron-hulled sailing ship Elissa, moored at pier 21 on the northwest side of the island, nearly level with the concrete sidewalk that leads to her visitor’s center. 110 mph winds tore at her for twelve hours, but never managed to find a grip on her lines or mast. However, one of her most important sails, the fore lower topsail, (ironically referred to as the “storm sail”) was shredded like a formal dress shirt ripped apart by a pack of snarling wild dogs.

Nearly five months later, Sail maker Jim Brink has traveled from San Diego to Galveston to create a new storm sail for Elissa. Since there is no available building large enough to act as a sail loft in Galveston, this skilled craftsman, who has designed and constructed sails for movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean, is using the grand ballroom of the Ashton Villa, a historic 1859 residence, to spread out the required 630 square feet of sailcloth.

I have to admit, after all the research I did on Elissa’s history for my novel Good Hope, including walking her decks and interviewing her crew, it never occurred to me that there are only six people in the nation with the skills necessary to refit her sails. That’s right- six. Skills that were once considered essential to our seafaring heritage are now almost lost to antiquity.

So what does this have to do with writing, you ask.

Let me tie it in for you.

Recently, a friend and fellow member of the Humble Fiction Café sold a short story. All of the members of the HFC feel a sense of kinship when someone makes a sale because many of us contribute to the early development of these stories with suggestions, critiques and editing. So, we were somewhat surprised when the publisher returned the story with some proposed corrections for “grammatical and punctuation errors.” Now here’s the rub. Not only were the suggested corrections wrong, the publisher’s letter proposing the changes contained punctuation and grammar flaws. Any English major could see it.

Now don’t get me wrong, most of the HFC members are not qualified, professional editors- but the writer who submitted the story is. She is an editor for a local Houston magazine and has seventeen years experience in the industry. We sometimes refer to her as the “Comma Queen” for her ability to turn our drafts into red-streaked pages that look like they came from the floor of a Victorian barber shop.
Our author was ready to pull her submission if the publisher insisted on printing it with their changes. She prevailed, and I’m glad to say that everything turned out for the best, but the incident makes me wonder about the current literary culture and the vanishing trade of the copy-editor.

Right now in Japan, the largest growing market for literature is called the “cell phone novel.” These stories are not only read on cell phones, they are written on cell phones, and mostly by amateurs who use text shortcuts and questionable grammar. Even with glaring flaws that tradition publishers would reject after reading the first paragraph, the demand for cell phone novels is booming. Granted- they’re free, so there isn’t a huge demand for them to contain expertly polished prose, but consider this: three of 2007’s top five bestselling Japanese novels were written on cell phones.
The closest thing America has to this type of market is fan fiction, and while it still carries the stigma of being written by hacks and amateurs, the number of Harry Potter inspired stories at Fanfiction.net is nearly 400,000, and the demand continues. I won’t even speculate on how long it will take for Twilight inspired fan fiction to surpass that total - okay, maybe fifteen minutes, but again, most of these free-to-read short stories, novels and novellas are full of punctuation, grammatical, and stylistic errors.
So how are publishing companies responding to this trend?
They are laying off editors by the hundreds.
After all, if the public is willing to pay for novels that editor’s at publishing companies previously rejected, like the current bestseller Still Alice, then why retain those services? I’m sure Still Alice contains easy to read sentences, and is relatively free of punctuation errors, but the point is, author Lisa Genova had to edit the novel herself, or in much the same way that Jim Brink was hired to shape the sails of Elissa, maybe Ms. Genova hired a free-lance editor to help shape the prose of her manuscript.

Fast-forward.

Imagine a celebrated fiction writer in the year 2150 who desires to create a late twentieth century hardbound copy of his current masterpiece - just for nostalgia. The plot, characters and story may be novel for the time, as the word implies, but where will he find someone with the skills to make his prose flow from the pages like a refreshing stream? Who will help edit the text so his readers won’t be yanked out of his beautifully created world by jarring sentence constructions and gross misspellings? And how many practitioners of that ancient skill will be left in the world? Twenty? A dozen? Six?

I’m afraid it will be a lost art by then. My editor friend and those like her may become tomorrow’s sail makers.

I only hope somewhere in that rapidly approaching future, the Elissa will still be sailing, and when someone in the Galveston Historical Foundation gift shop hands visitors a copy of my book, it won’t be titled Gud Hop.

Hell's Kitchen - Short Story from Split

Short story excerpt from the dichotomy/opposites anthology Split -by The Humble Fiction Cafe.

Hot of Hot/Cold

Hell’s Kitchen

by Dorlana Vann

John knew the old saying: Revenge is a dish best served cold. But he had to disagree. Because this time, his revenge would be cooked and served sizzling hot.

Being the cook for the Beaumont family had definitely been hell, and it seemed as if he had already worked for them an eternity. When he saw his murderer, standing there on the auction block, another saying seemed right on: What goes around comes around.

New arrivals went straight to the auction house. Both demon and H.S.L. (Human Soul Laborers) bought souls for a variety of reasons — the juicier the more they cost. John’s assassin was already up to a stellar price.

The red demon auctioneer had the whole house animated with energy. He was saying, “This soul here has no moral backbone. He killed over fifty men. He’s a thief, a cheater, and a murderer. Do I hear seventy-five....”

When John held up his auction paddle, his assassin looked him in the eyes. John remembered the last time their eyes met. The next thing he knew, he was in hell, standing exactly where this guy stood now. John had committed minor sins in comparison to murder, so buying him to eat would have been like buying a sickly, skinny cow. Not worth eating.

John had been purchased as an H.S.L. by one of the more prestigious demon families. Some souls were bought for pulling wagons, for building roads, for housewives, for... dinner. He understood how lucky he had been that he knew how to cook. His duties included buying groceries at the auction house.

He didn’t win the bid on his murderer just for pleasure; he would also make a fine meal. The Beaumonts planned to have a dinner party for twenty guests. John purchased two other plump souls as well.

When John arrived back at his kitchen, he put the three men into his tall, refrigerated cage. They needed to be fresh. Much longer out in the heat, and they would have been tough. He himself had developed skin close to the texture of leather. He hadn’t lived in Hell long enough to figure it all out, but he reckoned all the demons started out looking the way the human souls did, but in time they adapted to the atmosphere, causing their crimson, rutted skin.
Once John shut the cage, the hit man said, “Funny meeting you here.”

“So, you do remember me.”

“I never forget a face.”

“Of someone you killed or just in general?” John reached in a drawer and pulled out his knife sharpener. He wanted to give this guy the full treatment. At that moment, if he had ever wondered before, he recognized one of the major reasons for his descent. He kept deep hatred in his heart. Hmmm. He began to grind the knife across the sharpener.

His murderer said, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m about to make dinner.”

“I mean, in the hole. I never characterized you for a sinner.”

“We all have our sins. It’s the people who realize it too late that end up down here.”

At this, the hit man nodded his head. “So, what are you making?”

The two other men in the cage looked downright terrified. John looked down at his knife. No matter what kind of show he put on for his murderer, this wouldn’t be any easier than any other meal.

He inhaled and then nodded his head over to the man standing to the right of the murderer.

“Leg of Sam,” he said. He glanced at the next guy, “Barbecued ribs.” He looked directly into the hit man’s eyes. “And roasted pig.”

“You don’t have to be so nasty. Just making conversation.”

“Perhaps we should save the small talk for the guests.” Meals had always just stood in the cage awaiting their fate. Once in awhile one would sing or one would cry, but never did he actually have to talk to one before he prepared it.

“For what it’s worth,” his murderer said. “I apologize. I was just doing my job.”

John thought about this for a moment. He wondered if he would have repented if given more time. If he had not been killed at that moment, would it have caused a different finale? He doubted it. Just doing my job. “All right,” he finally said. “I’ll accept your apology. I have an apology of my own.”

“I suppose you do,” the man said.

John said, “You know, I have to cook you now.”

“Yeah,” the hit man said, “I know.”

The End

http://www.dorlanavann.com/

Humble Fiction Cafe Presents

Split

A dichotomy/opposites anthology
Purchase paperback

Split is Positively Rejected!

Happy holidays to all! 2008 has been an exciting year, and one of my highlights was having Split published. It provided a vast array of learning experience and even more exciting…

Split is Positively Rejected!

Recently, Humble Fiction Café entered our book, Split, into the 16th annual Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Book Awards. We did not win. I am happy to report however, that we received some fantastic scoring and commentary.

On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being excellent, Split received outstanding marks as follows:

Plot – 5
Grammar – 5
Character Development – 4
Cover Design – 5

Wow – I’m still excited by those impressive marks. The judge went on to comment that he liked the overall theme of the book, as well as the variety of voices and writers. He mentioned a few stories by name where he particularly liked the ending, and said all the stories were good reads! Additionally, he found value in the end of story explanations. The judge complimented Humble Fiction Café saying that through our writing he felt we liked one another and he sensed good will.

Equally beneficial, the judge also mentioned areas that could improve the book, such as stronger character development, and less focus on plot twists that occasionally resulted in sudden, sometimes violent endings. The judge felt there were too many stories with the character Beatrice, but also said they were all good so he wouldn’t know which stories to cut.

Overall, I think the commentary and our scores were outstanding. As writers, we value this kind of feedback because it helps us know what we did well, and how we can do better in the future.

If you haven’t yet read Split, I invite you to do so. If you’ve read Split, I would love to hear from you. What did you like best about the book? How do you think the book could be improved?


Happy Holidays!

Superstitions - by HFC member Dorlana

One of the themes I’m using for my novel this National Novel Writing Month is superstitions. I’ve never really been that superstitious except for doing things like throwing salt over my shoulders, just in case. (Yes, both because I didn’t know which one. BTW it’s the left.) However, my interest sparked after my mom told me how my grandpa often reminisced about growing up in Alabama. One of the stories he told was how his mother (pictured on the left) died when he was just five years old; it happened right after she told him not to shoo the birds away that had landed on their front porch because it meant death.

Around the same time my mom was telling me her memories of her dad, I had begun the rough draft of one of my very first supernatural fairy tale (Little Red Riding Hood) inspired short stories. It set the entire mood, and “Silverweed Muffins” was born. Now I’m taking that short story and using it to inspire the novel.

In researching superstitions, I discovered a few interesting sites on the internet (listed below) and finally found a reference book I really like, Dictionary of Superstitions by David Pickering. Even if you don’t need the book for reference, it's interesting to see how our lives today are influenced by these superstitions from the past.

Here is a good list of superstitions I found at bored.com http://www.bored.com/oldsuperstitions/

And this site list superstitions from Europe - http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/superstition.html

There are 72 superstitions in this really awesome print - Superstitions by artist James C Christensen - http://www.swoyersart.com/james_christensen/superstitions.htm

So how about you? Are you superstitious?

Supernatural Fairy Tales

Socializing Media (Stripping Down part two)

posted by: Victor

No, not THAT kind of socialization!  You hyper-sensitive Republicans... relax!

In part one, I talked about how I'm on the verge of transitioning over to an all-digital entertainment lifestyle.  Today, I posit the question of how it will affect those of us that aspire to create entertainment content (and hopefully make money at it one day).

Right now, we still live in a world that is mostly dominated by physical entertainment goods.  DVD's, books, magazines, CD's.  You can still go and purchase something and hold it in your hands and lend it to someone or eventually sell it in a garage sale for 50 cents.  We're still in a world where to be an author or a musician or a filmmaker, you are assumed to have produced some sort of tangible object that can be bought and sold.  But those days are quickly evaporating. 

Already, we don't think twice about music as a purely digital product.  When was the last time you purchased a CD and actually listened to that CD (as opposed to immediately digitizing it and burying the CD in a box with other CD's)?  The same is becoming more and more true with cable on-demand downloads, Netflix downloads, Hulu.com, Fancast.com (a great sites that collects all the free TV and movies that are available online) and on and on.  The only thing we're waiting on is the one uber-device that makes all of this seamless.

And when that device or technology arrives (in the next few years, at most), what's next for the content creators?

While the works you create will be instantly available to ANYONE in the world, how do you put your work in front of them?  And by the same token, EVERYONE's books and movies and music will be similarly available to everyone in the world.  How does one stand out in this new world of media democratization?  As many of us here on Humble Fiction Cafe have learned, it's HARD to make yourself heard when everyone else is squawking at roughly the same volume.  It's a lot of work.  And it's by no means foolproof.  It takes a lot to convince someone to part with their hard-earned money for whatever article of entertainment you have created.

One solution is pricing I think.  I think twice about purchasing something for three dollars.  Five dollars.  Twenty dollars.  The fifteen to twenty-five dollar range is reserved only for the best of the best.  Those authors or artists who I will buy sight unseen.  But how much am I willing to risk on someone I've never heard of or that doesn't have any sort of track record?  Ten dollars?  Nope.  Five dollars?  Still too risky.  A dollar?  Maaaaybe.  Fifty cents?  Now we're talking.  A quarter?  Sure!  At that price, even if it's the stinker of all time, I haven't made an investment that I'll regret.  I'm sure most people would fall into this category.

So with that in mind, how many of you would be willing to sell a digital copy of your book or song at ten cents?  A nickel? Who wouldn't be willing to buy a book for a nickel or a dime? What if selling it at that price point gets a million people to try it?   That's $50,000 or $100,000.  How many of us would be satisfied with $10,000?  That's selling your book for just a PENNY. Granted, you have to find a way to get your book in front of a million people, but with the internet, this sort of thing isn't impossible.

The record companies and movie studios are still hung up on the big price points for their products.  99 cents per song is a nice price point, but it's still only going to be songs that I WANT.  I'm still reluctant to just try out new music at that price.   But for a nickel per song?  I'd happily by a new band's album.  I'd buy a bunch of new artists albums. 

The key to all of this is the socializing of all this content.  We're already a good chunk of the way there, with the explosion of social websites like Facebook and Myspace.  There are tons of other niche social websites, like Goodreads, and Flickr and YouTube.  These are all great at what they do, but the sticking point is that for the most part, these sites still don't talk to each other.  It's not yet a seamless experience.  I have to leave Facebook (where I have dozens of friends) to go to Goodreads, where I have a much smaller circle of friends, who are unlikely to be on the site at the same time I am.  While I can post a review of a book on Goodreads, or attempt to start a discussion about it, it will usually go unseen for the most part by the vast majority of my online-capable friends.  Unless I post a link to my Goodreads review, no one on Facebook or Myspace even knows I did so. 

So the key is all of these sites talking to each other constantly.  When a friend posts something in Facebook, for instance, it shows up in my 'friendfeed' almost immediately.  Nearly every item is clickable or able to have a comment posted on it.  This feature makes a simple posting able to become a discussion thread.  And now, not just me and that one friend, but me and everyone else I know will be able to see that discussion and also contribute to it.  It's always fascinating when a friend from one of my social groups interacts with a friend from another group, such as when an old school friend from grade school in Canada responds to a comment that a recent filmmaking friend made. 

In the same vein, social networking will become the new shopping mall.  We are all influenced by the items our friends buy or recommend.  Things like postings and comments in Facebook will soon become (I believe) the greatest form of word-of-mouth advertising ever created. 

Already on Goodreads, it's possible to immediately click on any reviewed or recommended book and purchase it from Amazon.com.  But like I said earlier, at the current price points, I balk.  But if when reading that review, (and even if it only kind of sounded like something I might be interested in),  if it only cost a nickel or a dime or a quarter, I don't think I'd hesitate to click BUY.  I may never actually read it, but it didn't hurt my wallet to purchase it.  If it only cost me a quarter or so to immediately get in on whatever all my friends were suddenly talking about or downloading, I'd be crazy not to. 

We're still a few years away from the final seismic media shift, but it's coming.  The whole pricing and distribution structure for media will collapse on itself and then be reborn.  Instead of studios and publishers telling us what to watch or listen to or read, we'll be telling each other.  And the media we recommend to each other will be entirely different than what those corporations would be shilling.

And I believe that's when all of us will finally have a chance to be on equal ground with the 'big boys.'

Stripping Down (part one)

Submitted by Victor

No.. it's not that kind of post.  Get your head out of the gutter!

What I'm talking about it stripping down and streamlining one's life.  Reducing the clutter.

This has been on my mind increasingly over the past few months and lately it's directly intersected with the realm of entertainment, including reading and writing.  Specifically, I wonder if we NEED to have all of these books, DVD's, comics, CD's etc in our physical possession. 

We are pretty close to realizing all-digital experience.  For me, it started with my music collection.  I digitized it years ago and haven't seen one of my actual CD's since (I've got upward of 500 CD's).  I used to love putting the CD's on shelves in my media room and just LOOKING at them.  I loved seeing the vast collection.  But... I haven't seen those CD's in years.  And I have to say, I don't miss them even remotely.  I have all my music on my computer and my Ipod, every single song is available to me at a moment's notice.

A good friend of mine is in the process of setting up a home media server at his house, with one central computer that holds all the music and photos, and allows for the digitization of DVD's, and the recording of TV shows.  And then through his home network, any computer or XBOX can access any of that media content in any room, and even remotely through the internet.  If you have enough hard drive space, ALL of your movies, CD's and photos can be captured digitally, allowing you to dispense with having your physical DVD's or CD's take up any space. 

Likewise, I've discovered digital versions of my entire comic book collection.  As much as I have always loved looking at the physical comics, and flipping through my longboxes, I have to say that the experience of reading the comics on my laptop computer (on a screen that's actually significantly bigger than a comic book) is a superior experience.  I've been looking askance at my comic book collection lately, which is taking up a lot of space in my "library", and wondering if it's time to pack them up and put them in storage, or more extreme yet, SELL them all.

So now we come to where this intersects with this blog's primary focus, books.  I love my books.  More than CD's or DVD's or comics, I love seeing my book collection on my shelves.  I love seeing entire series with matching covers all lined up.  But I've got a lot of books (not as many as SOME members of Humble Fiction Cafe, you know who you are), and unless I find room for more bookcases, I'm going to have to start going two deep on some shelves.  And that, of course, is bringing me to the question:

Is it time to get rid of my book collection?

Again, make no mistake.  I love my books.  But the allure of streamlining and no longer having to own and store and haul hundreds of books is becoming almost too tempting to ignore.

The recent advent of book-readers like the Amazon Kindle is making the need for having a physical book in your hands almost obsolete.  That technology isn't entirely there yet, but it's close.  And for that matter, reading a book on my laptop isn't the headache it once would have been.  I've already got dozens of great free books that publishers have made available and they are releasing more and more free e-books every day.

One of the rationales for owning and collecting so many books is to be able to have them at one's fingertips should one suddenly need to read them or flip through them.  Or perhaps because of the fear that if we don't keep this copy, that we might never see another copy of it again.  These were all reasonable concerns back in the day, but now, thanks to EBay and Amazon and all the myriad online booksellers, I challenge you to go to any book in your collection and not be able to find a copy available online.  If you REALLY need a book, it can be in your hands overnight.

And if the internet still scares you, there's always the library.  With its system of inter-library book loaning, there's hardly any book that's not available to you with only a minimal wait. For FREE!

So DO we need to own books (or any media for that matter)?  If, like me, you're about at overload with clutter and STUFF, the thought of totally streamlining and going all-digital with one's media collection is so so so tempting.  As I've found with my CD collection, I ultimately don't miss SEEING them.

So where does this lead for those of us that desire to CREATE content?  I'll discuss that in part two later this week.

The Three Types of Writing (In My Book, At Least)

Or maybe more accurately, the Three Types of Reading. 

Over the past couple of years, as I have been examining the craft of writing a lot more intensely, I've also been taking a much closer look at HOW I read a book.  For myself, I've realized I'm able to classify the way I read books into three categories:

1. I love the characters and just enjoy spending time with them.  These types of stories are almost review-proof in that I'm not remotely looking for, or expecting, a work of art.  A book I'm reading now (and enjoying) is "His Majesty's Dragon" by Naomi Novik.  It's a very clever story imagining that dragons are a common part of the world and have been integrated into the military.  This series takes place during the Napoleonic Wars, and the dragons basically act as the Air Force.  The main character is a former Navy captain who discovers a dragon's egg and when it hatches, they bond, forcing them to become a dragon/pilot pair.  The story is interesting and clever, but early on I realized that the plot was secondary to the joy I felt from spending time with Lawrence and the dragon, Temeraire.  They are both such interesting characters that I'd like to know personally.  There are lots of logic issues that make you scratch your head when you really think about them ("How could the world have dragons and yet end up in exactly the same situation, historically, in the early 1800's that it was in without dragons?  Surely there would have been massive historical changes prior to that, right?"), but again these don't matter because the characters are so compelling.  And this fact surprises me because I'm nornally such a stickler for logic within the books I read and films I watch.
2. Sometimes it's just the World of the books that I love, and I don't care what characters are used to tell those stories.  Fantasy series are good for this, obviously.  I'll read any story set in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" world.  The world and setting are what make the plot and characters compelling.  However, this can backfire horribly when an author sets too many stories within the same world and uses the same characters to tell those stories over and over.  I can handle one or maybe two major world-altering events that utilize the same characters.  But when we're on our third or fourth or tenth trilogy where the same characters are having to save the day, it makes all the stories, past and present, seem like they were wastes of time.  ("If that last thing didn't wipe out the Dark Lord, then what was the point of that entire five book series I read?").   A series that did great at telling a variety of stories within the same universe, but didn't overuse any characters was Julian May's "Pliocene Exile" series.  It told what turned out to be a brilliant looping story over the course of many many generations and across millions of years.  Once a main character had had his or her story told, they were moved off the stage for the next figure to grab the spotlight.  
3. The third type of book I read is Author-based.  I read these books because I just like how the author writes, and don't care what the story is initially about or who the characters are or if it's in a world I know I'll likely enjoy.  There aren't many authors that I'll read whatever they come out with next.  Robert Charles Wilson is one.  He writes brilliant science fiction, with so far only one of his books being a sequel to a previous one.  I enjoy his writing style (even though it changes radically from book to book) and the ideas he comes up with.  A writer that I don't personally like, but one who seems to fit this same bill is Stephen King.  There are dozens of other major authors who fall into this category for people, but for me, there aren't many that I'll buy their next book sight unseen.  On the flipside, two of the authors I listed above, George R.R. Martin and Julian May have written many books outside of their 'universes'.  But I have zero desire to sample any of those.  I want these authors to just write within the worlds I've come to be fascinated with.  Likewise, I'm not overly interested to see what Naomi Novik does after her Temeraire books.  I wonder how the world will embrace J.K. Rowlings' non-Harry Potter books she writes in the future?  To me, it seems like the world fell in love with her characters and her world, and unless she writes more stories set in that world, I can't imagine her fans will be interested.  A book I'm reading right now, Carlos Ruiz Zafon's "The Shadow of the Wind" is perhaps the most beautifully written book I've come across in a long time.  It's a joy just to read, regardless of what's going on with the plot, or what character is currently on stage.  I can't wait to read what he comes up with next, regardless of what it's about.
   

 As a writer, is it possible to PREDICT how your book will be perceived?  How many authors set out to write something meaninful or filled with epic ideas, but come to discover that the reader could care less about those ideas and instead just love the characters, regardless of the story they are being surrounded by?  I know there are some writers that have gotten stranded within the series' they've created and have to stay there if they want to keep being able to write for a living.  No one cares about their other stuff. 

Obviously some authors get away with different combinations of these. 

What about you?  What if you ended up achieving incredible success with one of your first stories and it turned into a career of writing successful sequels?  Would you be happy continuing to write within that universe, using those same characters, for the next twenty or thirty years?  What if you wanted to tell other types of stories, in other genres with other characters, but your fans turned a blind eye to anything else you wrote?  Would you continue to write stuff no one wanted to read, or would you go back to the tired characters and world and tell yet another story set there? 

I don't know if I could do what some of these writers do.  I've got so many story ideas and so many characters that I think it would feel like the worst kind of prison to have to stay confined within such a narrow range of storytelling, regardless of how lucrative it might be.  As much as Rowling has benefitted from Harry Potter, I can only imagine that she's thankful to be rid of him for at least a little while. 

But... I guess I'll cross that bridge if I'm ever able to find it.

- Victor DiGiovanni

EXPERIENCING LIFE- OR HOW TO MURDER YOUR WIFE

by

Theresa Laws

HFC Member

Please don't panic. This is a blog about writing, not a recipe for committing a crime!

One piece of advice that comes early to every writer is: "Write what you know." So, let me think now, I know how to - what? I've done - what? I'm an expert at - what? When you think about it, most of us are average people living average lives. We're not kidnappers, bank robbers, or murderers. We don't dive into the ocean depths or climb Mr. Everest. We couldn't begin to know how. We haven't lived in the distant past and we have absolutely no knowledge of what things will be like in the distant future. We haven't had a hundred lovers, we haven't experienced abject poverty, lived through a harrowing event. And the list goes on.

Back in 1965, Jack Lemmon starred in the movie "How To Murder Your Wife" I was 14 and newly introduced to the magic of the big screen. Every time the movie changed at the theatre in my little home town, I was there with my dollar. Sixty cents for the ticket, forty cents for snacks. The thrill I got when I drew back that heavy, dark red velvet curtain and entered the theatre was electrifying. I loved the movies. Even in high school when my boyfriend and I went to the drive in, we parked on the front row and actually watched the show!

In 1965, the sensibilities were a little (OK, a lot) different than they are today, and in 2008 "How To Murder Your Wife" would certainly be seen as sexist and offensive, but for the 60's, it was acceptable.

Jack Lemmon played a party-hardy bachelor who drew a popular cartoon about a party-hardy bachelor. His big deal was that his character never did anything that he, the writer, had never done himself, and his readers knew it. Well, one morning the writer wakes up after a particularly wild night, to find himself married to a beautiful woman who he doesn't know and who can't even speak English. Now, in order to be true to his fans, he must write this faux pas into the comic strip. Fearing the end of his alter ego's popularity and his own livelihood, he plots to have the character murder the wife. He devises a plan and goes through all the physical motions in real life to be sure that his character can actually do the deed and dispose of the body. And, in the comic strip, it does appear that the wife is indeed gone.

As luck would have it, the real wife finds the comic drawings, believes he is really going to kill her, and disappears. Now our hero is charged with her murder and as they said in the movie review jargon of the day - high jinx ensue. In the end, after being put on trial and the whole nine yards, all is well and the story has a happy, if somewhat sappy, ending.

The character in this movie takes "write what you know" literally and to a whole other level.

How much do we, as writers, need to do this? We struggle with this every time we sit down to craft a story. We worry if Mom or Dad, Sis, or Aunt Edna will see themselves. Will they be pleased, or will they never speak to us again? If we are truthful, probably the latter.

Life isn't pretty, at least not when we are telling the truth, and most of us just have average life experiences to draw from. But that's what makes it so compelling. Part of the job of a writer is to draw her reader into the story, to put them at the heart of the action and conflict. To make the reader say, "Wow, I know just how that feels," Or, "Ive been there, I've seen that, I know just what I would do if I were faced with this dilemma" We want to make the reader look into their own lives, pull out the emotions there and connect with us. And, we can't do that if we don't reach inside ourselves and "write what we know."

In our writer's group, we often talk about what makes a story. We're fond of saying "A story is a story, is a story," which means a story can be set anywhere, in any time period, with any given set of characters, but it has to have conflict, believable people and emotions. That's where writing about what we know comes from. We've all experienced emotions like love and hate. We've all been frightened, worried, tempted. We've seen family member's and friend's strengths and weaknesses.We've been confronted by the mean guy with road rage, the conniving bum on the street. In short, we've seen it all and as writers we've stored it all away. When we sit down to write a story, then we pull it out and write about it. Writing can and should be very emotional work.

So, it isn't necessary to experience every little thing in order to write about it. We don't really need to go out and rob a bank to experience greed, fear, triumph. We don't have to jump off a cliff or drive a race car. We just need to tap into what we've already felt and witnessed. And, we don't have to murder a spouse to write about it.

Second to None

This week's post comes from HFC member and SPLIT contributing author, Gary Denton. Please do not send him money. No matter what he says, we don't have a treasurer.

I have great luck with the number two.

I have two children. I have two dogs. I have worked in Medical Imaging for two decades, and, for some cosmic reason, I have an amazing ability to come in second in writing competitions.

If you look back through my previous post, or read Sheltered Path, my short story in the Humble Fiction Café anthology Split, you will find that I entered the Fort Bend Writer’s Guild Spring Short Story contest last year, and came in second place.

This year, I entered a novel, and guess what?
I came in second.
Again.

It wasn’t an ordinary novel, mind you. No, it only contained six words.

Here is the back-story: Ernest Hemmingway, the master of brief, short, terse sentences, was once challenged to write a novel in only six words. He considered it for a moment, and produced the following gem: “For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”

As far as I’m concerned, he nailed it. In short, (literally) he created all of the wonder, strangeness, comedy, tragedy, and conflict found in almost any novel, and only used six little words.

I'm no Hemmingway, and, if I needed proof, here it is in the form of my award winning, second place entry in the Fort Bend Writer's Guild Srping 2008 six word novel contest: “Read Road Less Traveled. Now lost.”
For those of you who’ve read M. Scott Peck’s classic, I apologize.

In hindsight, I decided that my entry was flawed, and should have been edited to read thusly: “Took road less traveled. Now lost.”

I think that works better. Heck, it may even have won first place.

So, I’m out five bucks for the top prize.

But I’m still second, and surprisingly- consistent.

Gary Denton

Ten Ways You Know a Story was Written By Me - by HFC member Dorlana

Last month I was out blog visiting and came across a post on Dr. John’s Fortress blog. I went back and tried to find the exact post, but I couldn’t, so the idea of this post is the same, but the title may be a little off. And I’m going to add a little bit. I’ve decided to play a little game of blog tag.

If you have been tagged:
1.) Write a post about ten ways you know a story was written by you on your blog.
2.) Then comment to this post with the link to your post.
3.) Tag six more blogging writers with links.

That’s it. Ok… Here are the ten ways you know a story was written by me.

1.) It was usually inspired by a fairy tale.
2.) It has a supernatural element.
3.) There is a romantic undertone.
4.) There is a lot of dialogue.
5.) Very little description is used.
6.) A tree is mentioned somewhere. (I have no idea how this happened…)
7.) Use of symbolism.
8.) Someone usually dies, or there is a death of some kind. (See #6)
9.) The humor is dry.
10.) There are several hidden references.



I’m tagging
Sheryl
Manictastic
Linda
Gary
Victor
JD

P.S. I was tagged this week on my blog Supernatural Fairy Tales. I had to write a 6 word memoir!

Inspirations, inhibitions and fluff - Linda

A couple months ago, the group was sitting around talking about what we each do and don’t write. It became clear that we were all in self-imposed ruts. We each had one or two genres that we were comfortable writing in and several that we were just a little bit intimidated by.

That’s when Theresa came up with the idea for a letter exchange. Each of us would write a letter and put it in a pot. Then everyone would draw one of the letters and write a story inspired by it. The suggestion was that the member would choose a genre or style that was outside their comfort zone.

I had decided that the genres outside my comfort zone were spy novels/thrillers, mysteries, sweet romance, and science fiction. I decided to give science fiction a try. It’s my favorite genre to read, so why not try to write it? I had visions of space battles, star ships and terraforming in my head.

Then I got my letter. It was a birthday card from a child to her father. A little note tucked inside made it obvious that the parents were not married or on good terms. And it inspired absolutely nothing in the way of science fiction for me. So, I put it on my desk where I had to look at it every time I sat down.

It was very frustrating. I just could not figure out how to turn that letter into a space opera. I tried and tossed away several ideas. I came up with a great idea for a science fiction novel, but that didn’t help me with this project, and I realized I’m nowhere near ready to tackle a novel.

Slowly but surely, my mind dredged up some advice that I’d read somewhere. Stories, no matter what the genre, are about relationships. The relationship could be between a girl and her blind pony, a teen and his hotrod car, a young couple, a mother and her children, a man and his fellow soldiers. Science fiction stories aren’t about space ships, FTL drives or aliens. They, just like every other story, are about the relationships between the characters. The rest is just fluff.

I had an idea.

Then I had to decide whose point of view to tell the story from: the dad, the mother, or the child? For over a week, I was stuck. None of them seemed to work. Every idea felt horribly contrived. Then one afternoon I realized that relationships are never limited to just the immediate suspects. There was someone else involved in this story, and that’s who was telling it. And a new plot unraveled before me.

The dad is a Marine in the not so distant future. He’s a young guy who hasn’t figured out how to be a dad or a husband yet. But that’s not the important part. The important part is that he has these buddies, especially his Sergeant. And the sergeant is sitting beside the unconscious dad’s hospital bed, reading the card out loud. But why? Because the sergeant, his best buddy, feels horribly guilty.

The first draft showed me that I have a very good idea, but that I’m no where near done with the story. Writing science fiction is very intimidating. On my five bookcases, all stacked double deep, I have more science fiction than anything else. Just glancing in that direction fills your eyes with the names of masters and mistresses from the days of pulp to today. I have worshiped these authors since I was eleven years old. They are my heroes. How could I possibly think to attempt to keep their company?

This is way outside my comfort zone, and I don’t like that. It shouldn’t be. I love this genre. It’s what I read. And I can tell a story. I can make readers feel things about characters and care what happens to them. All the rest is just fluff.

AND MUSIC IS HER NAME - by Theresa Laws HFC Member

AND MUSIC IS HER NAME
By
Theresa Laws
HFC Member

When last I blogged, the subject was the origin of ideas: “What if?” and “How come?”
My writing also has a sound track. My CD wallets hold Dvorak’s Symphony #9 and Kid Rock, Garth Brooks and Il Divo, but the bulk of the spaces are taken up with Rock and Roll. I admit it- that’s the music that makes me smile and gives me ideas. The lyrics, the tunes, even the delivery conjure up so many pictures in my mind, and as Rod Stewart says – “Every picture tells a story.”
Listening to music for me is all consuming. When I listen, I give it my full attention. I cannot work to music, clean house to music, or even write to music, but when I do write, I use the images and emotions I’ve felt to create my story.
I think it started with the Country Western videos. While it’s not my favorite genre of music, I will admit that I’m impressed with the stories. Rock videos tend to feature the bands, but the Country Western ones tell a good story and that got me thinking.
At first, I thought about the older rock songs, the ones satellite radio calls “Classic Vinyl”. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be neat to do music videos with those songs and tell those stories?” The more I thought of it, the more I listened, the more I built on those stories in my head. I shaped them, filled in back story, and plotted endings.
Of course, some songs are just songs. “In a Gada Da Vida” is just a tune, but “Bring Me To Life” by Evanescence, inspired me to write an entire novel. I heard the lyrics “Save me from the nothing I’ve become” and I had a story about righting a past wrong.
Another great lyric is from Pink Floyd’s “Sorrow”. “He’s chained forever to a world that departed. It’s not enough, it’s not enough.” I’m still working on another novel inspired by those words about a lost love.
And, here’s what I see when Alan Jackson sings “She’s Gone Country” - Pink, pointy toed boots. But now you play along with me on this one and help me out with my character. What kind of jeans do you see with those boots? Dark denim, creased and starched? Faded and frayed around the bottoms? Or…Daisy Dukes? Think carefully. It will define your character and steer the direction of your story. What fun.
I can’t play an instrument, and my singing makes animals restless, but I can picture a story to almost any song. I’m just glad there are musicians out there who send me their stories and feelings through their tunes.
Theresa

Make 8 Great!

8 as in 2008.

For me, 2007 seems in many ways to have just been a build-up to, or preview of, what 2008 will offer. I spent the last few days of 07 seriously ramping up for this year, getting into an ambitious, yet practical, mindset. No weight-loss or exercise goals. No "stop doing this" goals, or "start doing that" goals. I gave myself just one directive entering 2008:

Make this the Non-Stop Year. Make 8 Great!

No more wasting time. No more randomly surfing the net for hours at a time. No more turning on the TV just to "see what's on" (and then turning it off hours later.) No more avoiding the most agonizing projects. No more avoiding the projects I'm actually excited about. Just DOING something. Anything, so long as it's something that moves me forward either personally, spiritually, creatively, healthily, or whatever.

Seven days into the new year, I'm shocked at just how absolutely energized I still am. I've yet to allow myself to have an idle moment, and rather than the mind-numbing exhaustion I was expecting, I find it's just the opposite. Everything seems like a bright opportunity, even the things I normally dread on a daily basis.

I could bore you with more details (which I had, before highlighting it all and hitting the delete key), but already this year, I've accomplished more on all levels than I did the entire first two months of last year.

From an Humble Fiction Cafe perspective, the next big event on our horizon is the actual (self)publication of our "Split" anthology. It's taken a lot longer than any of us expected, but I think it's going to turn out a lot better than any of us expected, as well. My contribution was one of the stories, Spirit, as well as the cover and layout of the book. It's been exhausting, but incredibly rewarding. Kelli had the (in my opinion) far more arduous task of making our little book LOOK professional. Without her input and editing, this book would have looked a lot more amateurish. I've seen a good deal of sloppy, rushed, and dull self-published work, and I'm proud to say that on a technical level, "Split" is going to be pretty slick. All the members of Humble Fiction Cafe will be able to present this book to friends and family (and strangers) with confidence and pride.

While the professional merits of self-published work is debatable, the effect that having this tangible product in our writing group's hands cannot be underestimated. It makes this hobby REAL. Even though the book hasn't been produced (yet), I believe the effort that has gone into it has pushed all the members of Humble Fiction Cafe into a new level of belief that they aren't just playing around at writing, or spinning their wheels. Everyone has upped their game, and the results are already starting to show. 2007 has already seen several members win awards for their work, and others are finding success with their novels being accepted for inclusion in a series of books to be released starting in 2008. And success gets contagious.

There has been some debate about whether or not we should do a Big Project for 08, and while I was at first firmly in favor of a new end-of-year book collecting our efforts, I'm now thinking we don't need it anymore. "Split" showed us what we are capable of. It showed us the bare minimum of what we should expect of ourselves. Now's the time to take the training wheels off and WRITE that novel or screenplay or memoir we've been holding inside for our whole lives.

"Split" was a good warm-up. But that's all it is. I can't wait for the day in the (not-so-distant) future where we all look back on "Split" and groan at how comparatively bad our writing is compared to what we will be doing then.

So get off your butt! Get started on whatever it is you passionately want to do. The time is now!

Make 8 Great!

The Excusinator

Something is gnawing at me. It’s November. The month of NaNoWriMo, and like last year, I’m not participating.

As a writer, it seems I have a history of holdups. I remember well at a very young age handwriting the start of stories in notebooks. I still have many of those story beginnings. And all the while I would think, if only I had a typewriter, then I could really write.

Then my parents gave me an old manual typewriter, one that actually used to belong to my grandparents. Man, that thing was old. Clack, clack, clack. I can still hear the keys as I typed away more unfinished new stories thinking, now if I just had an electric typewriter, one with a correction key, then I would have everything I needed to be a writer.

What do you suppose happened? You’ve probably guessed...I received an electric typewriter as a gift. Beautiful thing it was, it had a semi-word processor built in and you could type a limited amount of text into it, modify or correct the text, then push a button for it to type. And type it did. That machine was fast as the blazes, and yes, it had a correction key. I marveled at the invention as I wrote more stories, albeit unfinished, and thought, wouldn’t it be great to have a word processor, one that will store my stories so that I don’t have to re-type them with every change?

My first one was a DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) model, and I bought it from the company I worked for. Now everything was in place for me to become a writer. The stories grew longer, even journal entries became word processed, and I was happy. Until I got to thinking how nice it would be to have the ability to do research, look up words, and other activities on a home computer, better known as a PC. Yes, I thought, if I had a PC, then I would be all set to write magnificent stories, even novels.

I’ve lost count of how many PC’s I’ve owned. I currently have two in my home, neither is more than 4 years old. Both have Word from Microsoft Office, both share a high-speed connection to the internet, both have plenty of memory and hard disk space. They are both technologically in the now, certainly sufficient for any writing career or hobby.

So what’s the holdup now you must be thinking? What’s left to need in order to write as I’ve so desired what feels like all my life? Well, this one’s a hard one and unfortunately can’t be bought at a store. It’s time. I’m thinking, time is what I need most now.

I realize at this point, I’m not just a procrastinator…I’m also an excusinator! Every time I turn around I have an excuse why I’m not able to succeed at writing and finishing all the wonderful stories that pop into my mind. While each one of these stumbling blocks has been real, they have also not been something that should delay my writing. In fact, many a great novel was written before the advent of computers, even before typewriters.

So what does all this mean? Other than I do wish great success for my colleagues participating in NaNoWriMo, I also know it’s time for me to quit waiting for everything to be perfect. I’m going to start that novel (again), but better yet, I’m going to finish it. Does this mean I’m jumping in to NaNoWriMo mid-month? No. If I thought I hadn’t the time to finish a novel in the whole month, how crazy would I be to think I could write it in a partial month? I’ll start with baby steps, setting some realistic and attainable goals, and write one chapter at a time.

Now to end on a very positive note, always before when I’ve created these obstacles in my mind, a solution has always presented itself. I can’t wait to see how I can find more time in my days to spend working on my writing.

Sheryl

Writers Group - A Good Thing?

You bet! But there are people out there, writers I should say, that are not big proponents of participating in writers’ groups. Some say it will stifle your creativity and that you will be so busy critiquing and reading the work of your fellow group members that there won’t be time left to let your own creative juices flow.

Others say you will receive so much critique of your own work that you will be immobilized and afraid to write another word for fear of unkind comments. Some writers, they say, are forever looking for the “bad” in your work, perhaps even to elevate their own writings and musings.

Still others say it is impossible to find a group truly dedicated to writing, and that they are comprised of “wanna-be” writers that are not totally focused. That they won’t provide honest feedback, advice and suggestions that will be helpful simply because it is too part-time for each member.

And still there are other arguments.

But as many arguments as there are against writers’ groups, there are as many or more for writers’ groups. I’m here to say that writers' groups are wonderful!

I personally have participated in a number of groups...o.k., this is my third. But they have all been full of delightfully colorful characters and enriching conversations. Never, however, have I found such a diverse group of dedicated professionals as I have with the Humble Fiction Café.

Where to start...well, talent is a word that comes to mind. Members of our group have published articles, won contests, self-published books, held book-signings and some have written novels. One novel I read (unpublished as of now, but I believe just a matter of getting the book in front of the right person) is as good, and in many cases much better, than many of the books you will find available in any bookstore. We have inspired individuals in our group that can write a short story that makes you say “Wow!” Some are poetic and gifted at finding the exact right words to convey their message perfectly.

Through my experience with the Humble Fiction Café, there have been times I have felt overwhelmed with the talent in our group. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one in the group that can’t get the right words on paper to express what’s in my heart. That my words don’t convey the image in my mind. That I am completely inefficient and a blundering storyteller.

Then I go to a meeting and learn that I’m not the only one experiencing writer’s block. I’m not the only one feeling less talented. I’m not the only one having difficulty in finding the time to write. I go to a meeting and learn that this is all a common thread.

Sometimes I refer to my writers group as group therapy. It certainly feels like that at times, and it has helped me through numerous difficulties, if nothing more than to be around pleasant adults with a common interest sharing stories and tales over coffee and tea. What a fantastic thing writers group is. Not only do I get valuable feedback from outstanding writers that I truly respect and enjoy, but I also get to hear stories and share laughter with an interesting and great group of friends.

My mom has frequently told me I need to go through a 12-step program (long story, and not for here). She’s probably correct in that I would benefit from the meetings, the sharing, and from learning and applying the 12-steps. But I get a great deal from within my group. No, not the 12-steps. But with the belief in a higher power (I call mine God) and the support and encouragement of a terrific group, I am able to forge ahead, remain optimistic, and continually improve my skill at writing.

If nothing else, the Humble Fiction Café motivates, encourages, supports and shares. It is a wonderful writers’ group, and I am proud to be a member. I am sure that each and every one of us will remember with fondness the work poured into our eventually published first book, Split, and I look forward to many more group and individual successes.

My name is Sheryl, and I am a writer.

No matter whether I win or lose, I'm always the Victor

I have a tendency to get long-winded, so I’ll attempt to make this short (I failed). My name is Victor and I’m a writer. (Hi, Victor!) In reality what this means is that I’ve mastered the art of doing everything BUT writing, and have developed an amazing assortment of activities to do when I theoretically want to be writing. But I’m getting better. My output of actual writing is increasing, and the quality of it is (I hope) getting better.

Joining this writing group last September has been one the best decisions I’ve made. I’ve made more than a dozen new friends and I’m involved in a variety of fantastic new creative endeavors that I never would have imagined otherwise. I hope everyone else in our writing group enjoys it as much as I do, and if you’re not a member of a writing group, I highly encourage you to join one (unless you don’t like to write, that is…)

I’ve always been a creative person from my earliest memories. After devouring almost all of the Hardy Boys books as an eight or nine year-old, I started writing stories to amuse myself. My first ‘series’ was called “The Trail Boys”, and it was about me and my friends and the adventures we had riding the trails in the woods near our neighborhood. Sadly, that series never clicked with the general public and I abandoned it. Anyway, throughout my life since then, I’ve always had some sort of writing project going. I’ve entered a few writing contests in my school days, and won a couple. Winning something is always good for perpetuating a passion.

My creative energies ultimately followed the path of video production, and since 1987 I’ve been involved in this industry in some capacity. I’ve been a general operations person at a TV station, I’ve been the lead producer for a TV station’s 6pm and 10pm newscast (worst job I ever had), and over the past decade or so, I’ve been owner or co-owner of an independent video production company, first in Louisiana, and for the past three years here in Houston. A big part of this career has involved writing, and I’d venture to say that I’ve written maybe 300 commercials and a few dozen long-form videos. But as anyone that HAS to write stuff knows, this kind of writing sucks all the joy out of writing. So my ‘fun’ writing had to come from another source.

About fifteen years ago, I started writing my magnum opus Star Wars fan fiction epic. Well, not WRITING, but “working on”. I have about 300 pages of notes and histories and all the sorts of stuff you’d find for any sci-fi/fantasy epic. I never looked on it as a waste of time (which most fan fiction ultimately is, if the goal is to ever write something that might see the light of day outside of fan fiction circles) because I absolutely enjoyed every last minute of writing it and plotting and everything else. I learned a lot and to this day still think my story is a solid piece of work. I doubt I’ll ever get around to finishing it, but I still have the massive binder to remind me of what I’m capable of when I put my mind to something. But the main reason I kept on working on this story was that I didn’t have any other stories to tell. This all changed in 2005

My Star Wars epic (“Shattered Force”) met its untimely end as a result of a CGI movie called “Robots” that came out in 2005. You might have seen it. This movie was so cookie cutter, so by-the-books in terms of plotting, scripting and presentation, so uninspired, that it ANGERED me. Hard to explain exactly what it was, but a switch was flipped in me, and from that moment, I’ve had a completely different outlook on the sorts of things I was going to be spending my valuable creative energy on. Combined with modern technologies, such as (relatively) inexpensive production gear and new distribution methods, like youtube and NetFlix, I decided in that moment that I was going to pursue a filmmaking career. I began devouring any info on producing independent films, and writing screenplays. While I’ve written and produced hundreds of commercials over the years, it’s not quite the same as venturing into films. It’s two years later, and I’m STILL devouring information and trying to learn how best to approach producing a film. But the good news is that I’ve made significant progress.

I’ve directed and edited a few short films over the past couple of years and have the beginnings of at least a dozen screenplays, with the germs of ideas for a dozen more. The ideas keep flooding in and it’s the most exciting feeling. There are a couple of these projects that are actually looking like they might bear fruit and I’m really trying to kick that into high gear. One is a project with one of the Humble Fiction Café members, Gary. It’s a film project that will incorporate a strong Christian message into it, which makes it an even more attractive project for me.

But it was in the midst of this creative renaissance that the Humble Fiction Café started up at our Barnes and Noble in the summer of 2006. It was a tentative group at first, all of us very nice and supportive but afraid to give brutally honest feedback on each others’ writing. But we kept on meeting and getting more and more comfortable with each other and one meeting, I’m not sure when or by who now, exactly, the idea for our anthology book project, “Split”, was proposed. It’s gained more and more steam with each passing day until now it’s something that I think the majority of us are working on in some capacity just about every day (at least judging by the dozens of emails that circulate each day). It’s fascinating to see how we manage to creatively tie our stories together more and more. It’s becoming a very rich ‘world’ we’re creating for this anthology.

My entry into this anthology (well, the first of what I hope is three or four) is called, simply, “Spirit” and is a part of a ‘tri-chotomy’ consisting of Body, Soul, and Spirit. Dorlana had already started working on her “Body” story and had offered someone that opportunity to do the “Spirit” part of her and Darah’s (“Soul”) trio. An idea instantly came to mind and it just started flooding out. The basic idea for my story came from my wondering how the Holy Spirit (of Christianity fame) might view the soul He’s co-existing with. It quickly turned into an exploration of my own view of God and trying to reconcile all the different aspects of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, and the seeming contradictions.

For my own sake, writing this story has really helped me to solidify my own faith and to straighten out some inconsistencies in my own understanding. All of this is embedded within the story that, on the surface, is simply the sad final journey of what could be any Christian that has gotten caught up in something that has led them astray. The culprit in this story is drugs, but it could be anything; alcohol, pornography, a marital affair, criminal activity. "We all sin and fall short of the glory of God." How we do that is different from person to person. In the end, the most important distinction I wanted to make was between how WE view ourselves and the world around us (and in our mind what constitutes success or failure), and how God views those same things. I opted to tell a dark, bleak, horror story that from an earthly standpoint ends horribly, but from God’s standpoint, has a far different outcome. I enjoyed writing it, and I hope people get something out of reading it. One trivia note: They are buried deeply within the story, but there are numerous references to “Dante’s Inferno”, some more obvious than others. I used the story as a VERY rough template for the structure of “Spirit”.

I can’t express how excited I am about this project and about belonging to this fantastic group of writers who are all in the early stages of their writing careers. I can’t wait to see where this leads and to chart our growth as writers.

Victor