What Happened After War of the Worlds?

war of the worlds: retaliation

Veteran InMonster Mark Gardner is about to release a new project, but he needs your help. He’s co-authored a sequel to the H.G. Wells classic, The War of the Worlds, with John Rust, and they’ve got a Kickstarter going to fund the indie release.

Some things I find particularly exciting:

  1. This is one of those posted-on-a-fanfic-site-and-people-loved-it stories. Now it’s going to be a real book on paper.
  2. According to the Kickstarter page, this is the first War of the Worlds sequel to come out after Wells’ copyright termination. Oooo.
  3. There is going to be an audiobook, and you can get it WITH THE EBOOK TOO for a donation of about $25, which is a very good deal.
  4. They aren’t asking for much, and they’re only $40 away from their goal right now. There are 13 days left. It’s SO CLOSE.

I have no skin in this game (they are not sponsoring this blog, haha), but it seems like a really exciting project, so I hope you’ll check it out.

Learn more and help here.

 

I Attempt Time Travel

A: Let me know if you invent or discover a time-machine. 😛
S: You need more time? Or a do-over?
A: More time. Do-overs are risky. For that matter, Virginia’s superpower could also work.
S: True. Wouldn’t wanna rip a hole in spacetime. 
I have a cardboard cutout of the TARDIS, but so far as I know, it’s not a working model.
A: Track down Calvin and Hobbes.
S: I may have a cardboard box.
A: Attach the two together, then find a smaller box and draw a flux capacitor on it. Can’t cover too many bases, right?
S: Lemme just grab my sonic and my really long scarf…
A: Don’t get eaten by dinos or hunted by time-traveling cyborgs.
S: XD
A: You would have a sonic screwdriver, wouldn’t you. Yet another reason we are friends. ^_^
S: There are so many!
S: 
ok, my attempts have failed. However, I documented the experiment, and sent you the evidence.
Calvin and Hobbes style
Flux capacitor installed
Wired in
Sonic-ing the connectionsAll hooked upthe attempted journeyA: BWAHAHAHAHAHA!! Yes. And you are awesome. 
you should blog this. Because.
S: Haha. Ok maybe I will.

Dragons, Awards, and Loyal Bloggers

A week or so ago, Jubilare, my penpal and one of my favorite bloggers (also one of the smartest people I know), sent an award to this blog. (Thank you, Anne!)

The award was delivered by dragon.

The dragon also brought a set of instructions.

In my experience, when a 42-ton mass of rock-hard muscle and steely scales – which is capable of incinerating a small building with an accidental sneeze – asks you to do something, you do it. (Not helping him floss, though – never help a dragon with dental work.)

award - dragon's loyalty

The Instructions

  1. Display award on your blog.
  2. Announce your win with a post and thank the Blogger who awarded you.
  3. Present 15 deserving bloggers with award
  4. Link your awardees in the post and let them know of their being awarded.
  5. Write seven interesting things about you.

 

 

Whom Shall I Award?

It’s kind of unfair of Anne to do this, because I would’ve given it to her. But of course there are dozens of other bloggers who have turned out week after week for Inspiration Monday, giving me hours of entertainment.

Sadly, I cannot thank all of the InMonsters by name – there have been too many over the years. So (by instruction of the dragon) I’ll confine myself to the fifteen who’ve been active in the last few months. Some of these have been with me for years, some have just shown up in the last few weeks, and I’m grateful for them all.

  1. Tara – One of the most prolific InMonsters as of late. Sometimes she makes you happy, sometimes sad, but she always makes you think.
  2. Mark – Just as prolific as Tara, creates detailed worlds and regales us with short weekly installments of longer, epic stories.
  3. Bryan – His ongoing Asteroid Rake series hooked me from the beginning and is still going strong 16 chapters later. He forgives me for sometimes spelling his name with an ‘i.’
  4. Christa – She runs the gamut from addictive high school stories to sympathetic murderers.
  5. Chris – A veteran InMonster. We don’t read him every week, but whenever we do, we are reminded – this guy is going places.
  6. ToWanderLost – One of the newest InMonsters, whose prose is reminiscent of Markus Zusak.
  7. Avra – Usually either amusing, intriguing, or both.
  8. Lucy – A regular who often brings something in the sci-fi or fantasy realm, usually with a touch of whimsy.
  9. Kim – Another veteran, who sometimes blesses us with glorious steampunk or other delicacies. He also has the most writerly name of the lot of us – K.P. Moody.
  10. TheShortPages – Where even the prose has the taste of poetry.
  11. A-Ku – The artist formerly known as Spider42, a recently-returned veteran InMonster who skillfully changes voices to match the story of the day – which is usually epic.
  12. Mike – A veteran who often manages to chill or to tickle us.
  13. Kate – Another recently-returned veteran InMonster. She is young, talented, and Polish, which basically makes her family. English is her second language, but you can’t tell from her writing.
  14. TheImaginator – You know, the skydiving InMonster. His stuff is always fun, and sometimes deliciously noir.
  15. Adan – She will probably either break your heart or give you chills.

7 Interesting Facts About InMonster Zero

  1. I was born on National Talk Like a Pirate Day.
  2. I can sing. I’m not bad.
  3. I am licensed by the state of Texas to carry a concealed firearm.
  4. I have never broken a bone or been stung by a bee, but I did have gum graft surgery once.
  5. I have chronic nosebleeds, which I combat with a daily bioflavenoid supplement.
  6. As children, my friends and I used to act out Shakespeare plays with Star Wars action figures. Mostly A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
  7. Sometimes I wish I smoked, because it seems like such a writerly thing to do while you are sitting at your typewriter trying to think of words. Of course I’ve never wanted it enough to spend money on something that will give me mouth and/or lung cancer. So mainly I’m just waiting for them to invent a bubble pipe that actually works.

Cheers, monsters! Hope to read all your fun facts soon.

Happy Easter: Inspiration Monday Postponed

I know, I know. In however many years, InMon has never been postponed except for during Voice Week and that one time I forgot to hit “publish.” But I’ve had a doozy of a week (month, really), and it looks like I’m about to have another – which means you all have another week to play with last week’s prompts!

Don’t worry, everything’s fine (kinda great, actually) – just been crazy.

Thanks, y’all.

Advice for Career Writers (and NaNoWriMo Two Months Late)

 

cartoon robot breaking nanowrimo machine

Image by Davidd/puuikibeach

 

Way back in November, Bob Clary of Webucator emailed me about writing a piece for their NaNoWriMo promotion. They even wrote questions for me to answer so it would be nice and easy. But because I am lazy a successful copywriter in high demand, I failed to write and publish said blog until now! Oh, as they say, well. Apologies and thanks to Bob and co.

 

What were your goals when you started writing?

I wanted to write the kind of book that I liked to read. I wanted to do to other readers all the things my favorite authors did to me.

I also wanted to be a child genius who published the next great American sci-fi novel at the precocious age of 13, became rich and famous and got to co-direct the film adaptation. That didn’t happen and I got over it.

What are your goals now?

Finish my novel. Get it traditionally published. I have growing respect for the indie publishing world, but for now, at least, I’m still aiming for traditional. Though I may be beginning to doubt my trust in the gatekeepers of the literary world, there’s still something inside me that wants their stamp of approval. Sort of third-party confirmation that yes, this novel is a real piece of literature and not merely an amusing hobby that has stolen years of my life.

What pays the bills now?

I’m a copywriter at a Texas marketing firm. I write everything from billboards to blog posts about everything from cowboy boots to wound care. Every day is different, and I enjoy it tremendously.

Assuming writing doesn’t pay the bills, what motivates you to keep writing?

I’ll rephrase this question to: “What motivates you to write fiction when you already spend so much time writing copy?”

I need to write fiction to feel like myself. I rarely feel like writing when I have time to write, but if I let a weekend go by without working on the old WIP, I feel incomplete. I can even be cranky.

What advice would you give young authors hoping to make a career out of writing?

For copywriters:

  1. You’d better really enjoy playing with words; even the menial tasks like translating technical jargon into human-speak, and writing product descriptions.
  2. Read a lot and write a lot. You need to be able to recognize and fix confusing copy.
  3. Start a blog. A topical blog, not a personal blog. Pick a subject you’re passionate about and know something about. There’s a big push toward content marketing in the ad world and it will help if you have experience planning, developing, publishing and promoting content. Follow the blog at Copyblogger.com to learn more about it.
  4. Read Luke Sullivan’s Hey Whipple, Squeeze This.

For fiction writers:

  1. Don’t do this for the money. Do it because you love it, but don’t be heartbroken if you can’t make a living out of it. Few can.
  2. Don’t wait until you’re in a “writing mood” to write. The thing that separates the hobbyists from the real writers is that we put words on paper even when we don’t feel like it. Anyway, sometimes the writing mood doesn’t come until you’ve already been at the keyboard for a few hours.
  3. A lot of people will give you writing advice. Be careful whose advice you trust. Half of them don’t know what they’re talking about. Look for tips from storytellers who have proven themselves multiple times – like the Neil Gaimans and Joss Whedons and Pixar writers.
  4. When it comes to critiques of your work, drop the attitude that “they don’t like it because they don’t understand it.” Sometimes that’s true, but most of the time it’s because your work actually stinks. Cry and rant for a little while, then sit down and figure out how to fix it.
  5. Writing a novel is the hardest thing you will ever do (and good luck emerging from the experience with your sanity intact). Still, it’s worth it.

Feel free to post your own answers to these questions in the comments; you can also read answers from other writers.