P.J. Kaiser's Blog, page 11

Thangbrand's Transgression (#FridayFlash)

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Thangbrand's Transgression by P.J. Kaiser

The sound of the sparrows cavorting in the trees just outside the window echoed through the stone chamber of King Olaf's castle.  He sat atop his throne, having heard some alarming news in the wee hours of the morning and quickly convened this assemblage.  His robes had been draped over his body hastily and his closest four advisors had been called from their beds to join him.  Unshaven and bleary-eyed, they sat in their prescribed seats adjacent to the throne.  The advisors blinked heavily, propped their chins up with their hands and dosed for a moment while they awaited their special guest.

A cough, which sounded as though the cougher were close to losing a lung, echoed through the chamber.  Thangbrand the Priest, his tattered burgundy robes dragging the ground behind him, stumbled into the room.  He attempted to straighten his posture before continuing his procession toward the King.  He swaggered and swayed across the cold, gray stones and stopped upon arriving atop the red carpet before the throne.

"Your highness, Thangbrand the Priest at your service."  Thangbrand, hat in hand, swept both arms to one side and bowed so deeply he lost his balance and stumbled.  He righted himself and in the awkward silence that followed, a loud hiccup emanated from his gullet.

The advisors stifled giggles and the King's mouth opened in indignation.  "Thangbrand!  This is the final straw.  I absolutely do not know what to do with you.  The Kingdom of Norway cannot support your misdeeds any longer.  Tell me what happened last night and please provide any reason why I should let you off this time."

Thangbrand the Priest swallowed hard and squared his shoulders.  It was impossible to tell if he was preparing for his convincing argument, or swallowing hard so he wouldn't vomit.  "Your Highness, I beg your forgiveness.  I was on my way home after mass last night -"

An advisor, Fadn, interrupted, "Don't you mean you were on your way home from the alehouse?"

Thangbrand shrugged a shoulder.  "Well, I might have stopped by at the alehouse for a short while after the mass.  Anyway, I encountered a man who was cursing the name of your Highness, King Olaf, and he was saying that Norway had never had a worse King."

The King's eyes grew wide.  "Really?  He said that?"

The priest nodded.  "Yes, yes of course he did.  And I grew so incensed that I drew my blade and spilt his guts on the road."

The King said, "So, am I to understand that you took it upon yourself to kill this young knave because he spoke out against me?"

"Yes, your Highness.  Indeed it is the truth."

"Do any of you have any information to refute Thangbrand's version of the events?  Fadn?"

Fadn, upon hearing his name, shook his eyes open.  "Well, your Highness.  The version of events that I heard was that the poor lad was the boyfriend of a certain young lass named Theos."

All of the men in the chamber, excepting Thangbrand himself and a couple of still-sleeping advisors, sighed and nodded as the truth of the situation sank in.  The last time Thangbrand had come before the King due to his misdeeds it was for impregnating young Theos.  The King had found a family in the countryside willing to take in Theos and her future child in exchange for an annual stipend.

The trenchant Thangbrand spoke up, "No!  It's not true.  I tell you that although I had consumed a modest amount of ale, the events are as I said.  Out of the blue this young lad came up to me …"

"Silence."  Declared the King.  He scratched his chin.  "We have no witnesses and no evidence of either story, but of one thing I am sure.  Trouble follows you, Thangbrand the Priest.  You are a wise and learned man and you take your work seriously when you aren't misbehaving.  I have a special errand for you that, if you succeed, will be your life's work and will bring you fame throughout the land.  If you fail, well, you'll be too far away to bring further shame on my kingdom and my crown.  You will depart for Iceland tomorrow.  See if you can be recovered from the after effects of the ale by that time."

Thangbrand's jaw dropped.  "Iceland?  Whatever for?"

"Why, to convert the heathen to Christianity, of course, brother Thangbrand."

Thangbrand's eyes blinked twice, he leaned over grasping his stomach and vomited on the King's red carpet.  With difficulty, he righted himself, wiped his mouth with his sleeve and said, "Yes, Your Highness."

The sparrows song faded as daylight fully broke and streamed in through the windows.  Thangbrand turned his back to the King and shuffled out the door.

{This story is inspired by the true story of Thangbrand as told in the poem "Thangbrand the Priest" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.}

Thanks for reading and/or listening!  Please leave a comment and let me know what you think!

 

 

 

Birth of a Book Part 1: Story Selection and Editing

You can listen to this post by clicking the play button below. The text for the post follows. Listen!

Facepalm.  That's what I did when I was doing my recent review of "A Self-Publishers Companion" by Joel Friedlander.  In the process of researching the book and exploring Friedlander's website, I discovered that he blogged the process of creating his book.  I realized that I've been working furiously away for months on my e-book and had I written one blog post about it?  No.  Facepalm.  So here's the inside story, such as it is.

I always envisioned launching my literary career with the "Great American Novel."  Problem is, the only thing I have that resembles a novel is a dusty NaNoWriMo draft from 2009 and at the moment it's not even a novel, much less great.  I suppose it is American although the protagonist is born in Germany.  OK, never mind.

Anyway, so it all started in February, 2010 when I won the February Challenge at Write On! Online with my story "Waiting for Spring."  I won a free professional audiobook of up to 21,000 words from iScript.com.  I was excited about winning, of course, but nervous because I didn't feel I was ready for my fiction to be put into anything as final as an audiobook.  I felt – and still feel – that I am very much a work in progress.  So I contacted them and asked if there was an expiration date on the offer.  They very kindly said that there was no hurry.

I figured it didn't make sense to have an audiobook if there was no book, so I set about putting together a list of stories that I might include.  I also continued to write Friday Flash and Tuesday Serial as often as I could.

As some of the stories got to the point where they were as polished as I could make them, I hired a freelance editor.  She worked with me on each of the stories and several have gone through numerous rewrites.  With every pass through a story, I have learned more and more about writing.  Working with an editor has been the single most important thing that has improved my writing.

To-date, I have a total of 75 stories, 20 of which are serial installments.  I'm not sure whether I'll be editing the serials and including them in the ebook or whether they will be put out separately.  Of the 54 standalone stories, I had originally planned to include the majority of them – or new versions of them – in the e-book.  The more I learned, however, the more I realized that many of my early stories are beyond hope.  With every pass through the list, I eliminated more of the old stories.  So at the moment, 29 of the 54 standalone stories are in "retired" status.  They were interesting experiments for a new writer, but don't have enough of the important components for an engaging story.

So I've got 26 stories slated for inclusion in the e-book, 11 of which are "complete."  It's been a difficult process to learn that at some point, it's necessary to stop tinkering and re-imagining a story and just let it be.  However, it's incredibly freeing to be able to finally call a story "done."  Otherwise, it keeps swirling around in your mind begging to be rewritten or tweaked.

Another aspect of my work is to focus on submitting the stories that are polished.  Eleven of the stories that are slated for inclusion in the e-book have been published either in online journals or in print.  I feel pretty good about that number and I hope to increase that number before publishing my e-book.

So I'm currently working with two editors and hope to have all stories edited over the summer.  How will I end up publishing my e-book?  That, at this point, is anybody's guess.  If you're an agent or a publisher, let's talk

 

 

Review: A Self-Publisher's Companion by Joel Friedlander

In his Preface, Friedlander talks about the thinking behind creating this book.  He is a prolific blogger with a treasure trove of information in his blog archives (which are, by the way, growing by the day).  I have been following him on Twitter and on his blog for some time now and I can attest to this.  Finding "the post" that you're looking for in such a vast archive can be challenging.  So he's gathered up some of his best posts and organized them to provide this extremely useful and important orientation for anybody considering self publishing.

An important point to make up front is the one that Friedlander himself makes in the preface:  if you're looking for a detailed "how to" or instruction manual, this is not the book for you.  He felt that there are already enough instruction manuals on the market so he focused his book on more "big picture" issues including why authors should consider self publishing in the first place.

There were a couple of things that I didn't like about this book.  I've read other books that were formed by blog posts and there are two approaches:  1) outline the book up front and then begin blogging in the content to fill out the book, and 2) dig through archives, as Friedlander has done, edit the posts and organize the posts into a book.  Although Friedlander would disagree with me, I feel the first approach works much better because the structure has been created with forethought and the sequence of the chapters and sections are logical.  It took awhile for me to get used to the format of this book because the sequence of the sections sometimes seems forced and at times there is repetition of key concepts across sections.  This is natural in a blog, of course, but less expected in a book.

Also, due to the nature of how the book was created, I had a bit of a difficulty with the sense of time reference in the book.  Several times throughout the book Friedlander references events that have happened "recently." I am detail-oriented to distraction and in several of the cases, I wanted to know specifically when the referenced event occurred. This is important because the world of book publishing is changing so quickly year by year and sometimes month by month.

In the first section, "A Self-Publishing Orientation," Friedlander provides some excellent big picture information on the state of self publishing and provides lots of hints and tips to help you formulate your high level approach to self publishing.  The "Self-Publisher's Self-Questionnaire" is a particularly useful section for authors as they begin to consider their strategies and tactics for self-publishing their book.

The section "Bookmaking" is sort of an ode to the bygone days of book craftsmanship and an entreaty to authors to use professional services for cover design and book formatting if at all possible to ensure that the end product is the highest quality possible.  Book design is important and although it may be difficult to make the case "buy this book, it's designed beautifully," a good design will certainly increase the credibility of you as an author.

"Social Media for Authors" provides some very useful tips for authors who are new to social media.  It should be said that the bulk of the content in the book is useful for both fiction and nonfiction writers although some of the content is more geared towards nonfiction writers.  The section entitled "17 Ways for Writers to Publish Their Content," for example, provides excellent food-for-thought for nonfiction writers.

"The E-book Revolution" discusses the pros and cons of e-books and "The Electronic Life" talks about some of the distractions in our new digital world.  The final section "You Are the Market" discuss author branding and platform.

At the end of the book, Friedlander also references numerous additional resources available at his blog "The Book Designer" and cites other websites useful to self publishers.

In a delightfully meta move, Friedlander blogged the process of creating a book from his blog (did you follow that?).  These posts add an entirely new dimension to the process and anybody serious about self publishing should spend some time reading through these step-by-step posts as well.

So, I highly recommend this book if you are new to the idea of self-publishing.  Have some patience with the sequence of the sections and you'll find many hints and tips to get you started thinking about self-publishing.  You'll also find pointers to more detailed information that you'll need on your journey.

"A Self-Publisher's Companion" is available in print from Amazon and Barnes & Noble and in e-book format from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Inspiration Minute: Vivian Maier, May 9, 2011

In my new feature, "Inspiration Minute," I'd like to share with you something that has caught my attention or inspired me recently.  Be forewarned, it may take a bit more than a minute! For readers, these posts might show you something interesting that you hadn't considered before and for writers, these posts might inspire a story – either directly or indirectly.

A random "retweet" on Twitter by Dan Blank a few days ago brought the work of the photographer Vivian Maier to my attention.  I usually follow his tweets about writing and publishing – I didn't realize he had good taste in art as well.

These photographs of Vivian Maier – a nanny who did photography in her spare time – were found only when a storage locker of hers was auctioned off due to nonpayment.  It's an incredible story – you can read more about it here.

These photographs are primarily in New York and Chicago in the 1950′s thru 1990′s but there are various other places included as well.  Every one of the photographs could inspire multiple stories – they are intriguing scenes of city life.  So, pour a cup of coffee (or tea!) and browse through the collections that are catalogued thus far.  Go to the Vivian Maier site and you can find the collections under the "portfolios" tab.  If you're contemplating an American story, especially a period piece, these photos will surely inspire you.  Enjoy!

Please let me know if this is interesting or inspiring in the comments!  It will help me to hone in on the best items for future installments of "Inspiration Minute."

Inspired Links – May 8, 2011

In my "Inspired Links" feature, I provide links and brief descriptions of thought-provoking articles.  I hope you enjoy these little treasures

- I have two goodies from Novel Doctor (editor Steve Parolini) this week:  "Summoning the Muse" and "How to Write Good Dialogue."

- Piotr Kowalczyk has a myriad of wonderful resources on his blog and his latest post on building better relations with readers is no exception.

- Do you like to read Friday Flash stories?  They're running a reader's choice poll right now through May 28.  Nominate your favorite Friday Flash story and it will be included in a poll for possible inclusion in the Best of Friday Flash Volume 2 anthology.  So, start nominating now!

- A friend of Friday Flash – Barry Northern – is the editor for a new Young Adult Fantasy and Science Fiction podcast called "Cast of Wonders."  Writers / podcasters should check out the guidelines and readers / listeners should keep an eye on their site for the podcasts.

- There's a new blog for writers and readers of women's fiction called simply "Women's Fiction Writers."  It was started by Amy Sue Nathan and it's becoming a regular in my Google reader.  The latest post is very informative and the title says it all (although it's applicable for books beyond women's fiction):  "How the Right Book Cover and Title Can Help Women's Fiction Cast a Wider Net."

- Sage Cohen has written a highly personal post "The Death of the Dream Could be the Birth of Unprecedented Possibility" which provides some valuable insights for life and writing about how life sometimes throws our best-laid plans into a tailspin and sometimes we come out better for it.

- And finally, my High School back in Ohio has entered the Pepsi Refresh Project to win a grant of $50,000 to open a soup kitchen to provide the students an opportunity to do community service and to provide a much-needed service in this economically disadvantaged area.  If you'd like to help out and vote, here's the direct link.  Thanks!

If you're wondering about my methodology for choosing links for inclusion in this post, rest assured there isn't one.  It's just a collection of things that I found interesting and I thought you might too.  Please let me know what you think!

 

Review: "Story Starters" by Clifford Fryman

"Muses never play nice. They torment a writer with ideas when there is no time to write and refuse to cooperate when in front of a blank screen. It's enough to make a writer pound their head on their keyboard. But even the most fickle of muses can be thrown into a creative frenzy with StoryStarters prompts – a handful of words to inspire thousands more. Over 1,000 prompts to tickle your muse."

I thought maybe Clifford's muse had taken steroids when I first stumbled on his Twitter meme "#storystarters" one day.  Clifford was steadily tweeting out many of these story prompts over the course of each day.  In all fairness, a small group of writers joined him in sending out prompts, but his were by far the most numerous.

Turns out he was working on gathering the Story Starters into an e-book and so I assumed that once the e-book was out, the Story Starters would cease and Clifford's muse would retreat into hiding like my own muse often does.  Then I come to find out that his muse actually specializes in Story Starters and cranking them out continuously is a great source of entertainment for her.

His wife, Lisa, says in the introduction to the book that he has had this continual inspiration at least as long as she's known him and, in fact, that's why she married him.  (I think she may have been kidding.  Or at least exaggerating.)

But you and I can benefit from Clifford's turbo-charged muse now that his "Story Starters" e-book is available.  There are two editions – a free "Mini Edition" that contains 67 pages of Story Starters and the full edition which was released on Amazon on May 1 that contains 154 pages of Story Starters (that's over 1000 Story Starters!) plus two flash fiction stories inspired by the prompts written by Fryman himself and links to stories written by others.

Although the name is "Story Starters," in my case, I haven't limited their use to the beginning of a story.  They could come in the middle or the end or they might not even be used verbatim in the story.  The Story Starter can sometimes simply inspire another idea which inspires another idea which inspires a story.  It's interesting how the brain latches onto something and it's impossible to predict the end result.

Some of my readers will remember a story called "The Pianist" that I wrote last year that turned into a serial story that sadly was abandoned after four episodes due to my lack of outlining.  The Pianist was inspired by a Story Starter:

"He decided he must be deaf if music was the language of the heart.  The song had everyone in the room weeping except him."

I didn't use the words at all in my story, but I used the sentiment that was implied by the words.  But I digress.  "The Pianist" will be making a reappearance in my writing at some point down the road, likely in a different form and after considerable outlining.

If you're looking for inspiration but not sure whether Story Starters will work for you, then i recommend checking out the Twitter hashtag "#storystarters" to have a little sampling from Fryman or other writers.  If you like what you see, then you can download either the Mini or Full edition of "Story Starters" and start writing.

"Story Starters – Mini Edition" is available free at Smashwords, Barnes & Noble

"Story Starters – Full Edition" is available for $.99 at Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes & Noble

100 Stories for Queensland – E-Book Release!

The e-book is here!  It's available on their site where you can download a free sample.  It will be available soon on Smashwords, Amazon, Book Depository and other sites.  The paperback is also coming this Friday and buyers of the paperback on their site will also receive a free copy of the e-book from Emergent Publishing.  As a reader, I think this is a terrific idea and I wish more publishers offered the print book and e-book as a package.

As a reminder, this anthology includes my story "Save Me Hay-Zeus" in the "Staff Contributions" section.

 

 

Here's more about the anthology:

"One hundred beautiful stories. Our stories.

When so much was lost or destroyed, this was created.

That's something that can never recede or wash away."

Kate Eltham – CEO of The Queensland Writers Centre

100 STORIES FOR QUEENSLAND has something for everyone, from slice of life to science fiction, fantasy to romance, paranormal to literary fiction. Heart-warming, quirky, inspiring and funny, the stories between these covers will lift readers to higher ground.

So, start by downloading the sample, pick up the e-book or paperback and join the conversation on Goodreads.

Inspiration Minute: Youngstown, Ohio – May 2, 2011

In my new feature, "Inspiration Minute," I'd like to share with you something that has caught my attention or inspired me recently.  Be forewarned, it may take a bit more than a minute! For readers, these posts might show you something interesting that you hadn't considered before and for writers, these posts might inspire a story – either directly or indirectly.

I first heard about the plight facing Youngstown, Ohio in this story on NPR:  "A Shrinking City Knocks Down Its Neighborhoods."  In the aftermath of the recent economic recession (or depression, depending on who you ask), we've been hearing about many cities facing crises with the number of foreclosed homes like Cleveland and Detroit.  This story about Youngstown highlights the reality of what challenges face a city with a rapidly decreasing population.  Imagine being the only residents left in your suburban neighborhood.  Is the city still obligated to provide you with fire and policy protection?  How about utilities such as water and electricity?  You can imagine the cost of supporting the infrastructure for a city that is as spread-out and splintered as Youngstown appears to be now.  This made me curious about how Youngstown is dealing with the challenge.   I found some additional information in this article from 2008 and this site maintained by the city is the web page for "Youngstown 2010" and includes all sorts of interesting details including land use maps and detailed plans.

Please let me know if this is interesting or inspiring in the comments!  It will help me to hone in on the best items for future installments of "Inspiration Minute."

Inspired Links – Apr 30, 2011

In my "Inspired Links" feature, I provide links and brief descriptions of thought-provoking articles.  I hope you enjoy these little treasures

We have a bumper crop of links this week, I've tried to screen them so you have the very best:

- Storyfix by Larry Brooks is one of my favorite writing blogs and he has put together a list of his top ten most popular blog posts for 2010.  There are some real treasures in there.

- I caught bits and pieces of a couple of excellent chats this week – #editingchat with Victoria Mixon and #bookmarket with Claudia Christian (a chat with Jeremy Townsend of Publishing Works).

- "How to make your most ordinary scene interesting" by Roz Morris – the title pretty much says it all.  This is something that I've been struggling with lately.

- From Janice Hardy, "You can say that again:  Repeating Yourself" is a very nice explanation of how many ways repetition can creep into your writing.

- Another good post on writing technique is "How to write a better novel by using an inciting incident" from Gary Smailes over at Bubble Cow.

- Whether you're new to submitting to literary journals or you're an old pro, there's bound to be something useful in this comprehensive post from Lynne Barrett:  "What editors want:  A must-read for writers submitting to literary magazines."

- Sue Collier has put together this comprehensive list:  "27 things you can do to promote your book."  These tips hold even before you've published your book, so check it out – you're bound to see some new ideas there.

- I've mentioned before on this blog that one of my personal goals is to find a better balance between being plugged in and unplugged.  "How I kicked my digital habit" by Jemima Kiss is a terrific example of how it can be done.

- In "The creative process:  not everything needs to be shared," Dan Blank provides a gentle reminder that the ultimate purpose of creating art of any kind is for ourselves and sometimes it's ok to put it in a drawer.

If you're wondering about my methodology for choosing links for inclusion in this post, rest assured there isn't one.  It's just a collection of things that I found interesting and I thought you might too.  Please let me know what you think!

 

On Using Writing Prompts

From very early on in my writing, I have loved using prompts.  Personally, I don't go for complicated prompts – those that border on puzzles.  For example, "Use these seven words in a flash fiction of under 300 words" or "Write a story in which the protagonist is somebody who has constructed a house across the street from your grocer."  Some people gravitate towards prompts like that and I certainly applaud them for it.  They just don't click with me.  I like gentle, nudging prompts.  Sometimes a gentle prompt such as a single word or image will unlock a story that's been churning away in my subconscious for some time.  Or a prompt will put some structure around a vague idea that I've had for a story.

It is with this idea in mind that I stumbled upon an idea for a prompt while wandering around a bookstore the other day (yes, bookstores still exist in some parts of the country).  "Word a day."  As simple as that.  The idea came to me while looking at moleskins in the bookstore.  Unfortunately, they didn't have any "word a day" calendars at this time of year, but I found a free app for my iPhone and I am now off to the races.

My goal is to get into a daily writing habit even if it's something as small as a paragraph or just a few lines, although I know that many days I won't be able to pull this off.  I started my "Inspiration Minute" posts with that in mind, sharing things that inspire me to at least think and possibly write.  And "Word a day" also fits that prescription beautifully and in two days it has inspired two flash-length stories.  My words so far have been "avatar" and "trenchant."  The stories themselves may or may not ever see the light of day – the goal isn't to work a finished story every day, just put forth some rough draft material.

I've added a "word of the day" to my sidebar – scroll down, it's on the right-hand-side.  Not sure if I'll leave it there, but it serves as a good reminder for me for the moment.

Do you use prompts?  What sort of prompts work best for you?  Please add your links for prompt sources and if I get enough, I'll gather them up and include them in a post.  I'll share some of my favorites, as well.