Christopher Stocking's Blog, page 14

Some Tips On Tags

For my fiction workshop class I submitted a short story entitled “Bastogne.” As I’m sure you may be able to infer from the title, the story takes place in Bastogne during World War II. It’s about two American soldiers. It’s about friends. And it’s about loss, regret, and guilt. The class really enjoyed it, which was nice to hear. They had a few minor suggestions, most of which I agreed with. However, one of them I didn’t. The class suggested that I use an exclamation point when people are scr...

Sunday Sum Up

Today seems like a good day for a summary blog post, mostly because things have been going quite well on the writing front.

Things accomplished in fiction :

The writing has been going amazing. I’ve been averaging over 1,000 words a day for the week, and Black Powder Brigade is developing nicely. I’m worried about running out of plot, especially being that I’m still 93,000 words from my goal. But I may do some poking around Pinterest and some other various websites to spark a little inspiration....

Black Powder Brigade: 20,000 Word Update

I finally crested 20,000 words in the first draft of my flintlock fantasy novel, Black Powder Brigade. Only 100,000 more to go! I have to say, it’s taken me far too long to get to 20,000 words. I’ve been working on this draft long enough to where I should be closer to 40,000. But, oh well. If I had a time machine, (or if I were The Doctor!) I would go back and change it. But, alas, it is what it is. Nothing to do but push forward.

Part of the reason it took me so long to get to 20,000 words is...

Book Review: Blackbirds (Miriam Black #1) by Chuck Wendig

I don’t often do book reviews because, well, I’m just awful at them. I never really know quite what to say, and I don’t want to give away too much. Usually I’m pretty concise, and can get everything out in a few sentences, but I find that a lot of book reviews are 500+ words. However, seeing as how Chuck Wendig is one of my favorite people (even though he doesn’t know it, until he wakes up tied up in my basement, eyes half-closed as the drugs wear off. He’ll spot a small table, speckled with...

The Potential For Research

Despite the fact that fiction is, well, fake, there is still a need for realism in it. Realistic events, realistic setting, smells, sounds, etc. Especially if a book is taking place in a real-world location. In my fiction workshop class we had to go to a place and do “eyes and ears” research for our next short story. We had to take notes on the things we saw and smelled so that when we write the short story we’ll be able to include these intricate details. The major point of this exercise is...

When do we Pair Learning with Teaching?

Image Credit: Lynn Kelly Author via WANACommons

I absolutely believe that it is impossible to learn everything there is to know about writing. It just can’t be done. With the constant changes in the markets and what readers are looking for, you just can’t learn it all. There are just so many techniques to learn. Sure, you can learn a lot of them, and you can become a master of those you do eventually learn; but to master all the techniques of writing? I don’t know about that.

This got me thinki...

Still Night

It has been a while since I’ve posted a poem, and seeing as how poetry inspiration struck me last night as I was close to falling asleep, I jotted this down. And I’m very glad I did. I almost decided to wait until morning, but I knew it would be lost forever. I’m not sure if this poem is finished, or if this is just the first stanza, but I really like it a lot so far, and some feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Still Night (Working title)

As we sail into this still night,

white-crested, blac...

3 Things I’ve Learned From Self-Publishing

Since I decided to self-publish over one year ago, I’ve published six works, two of which are retired (although I may rewrite ESTRA Corp. in the future.) Over time, I’ve learned a few things about self-publishing.

1)Self-publishing isnot the easy way out

Anyone who believes self-publishing is easy, they couldn’t be more wrong. Sure, physically publishing the book is easy, but anyone who is serious about writing, and who wants to write full time, should know that self-publishing is hard. You hav...

Flintlock Fantasy

Book 1 in The Powder Mage Trilogy

It would appear that I have stumbled upon a somewhat new sub-genre of fantasy called Flintlock Fantasy. I did a generic “define: flintlock fantasy” search on Google, which didn’t yield many results. A good example I found was The Powder Mage Trilogy by Brian Mclellan. Check it out on Facebook, I think it’s going to be brilliant.

So what is Flintlock Fantasy? Well, since I couldn’t find an accurate description (how does one define any genre, really?) the best I...

I Don’t Do “Happy”

Ouch.

I’m not sure about other countries, but in the United States, at least in the movie industry, there seems to be a standard where every movie ends happily. Everyone gets what they want. It works out for them in one way or another. This isn’t so much the case with writing, of course. Especially my writing.

Really, I can’t think of a single happy ending I’ve written. I haven’t written a ton of works, but I’ve penned enough novels, poems, and short fiction to know that, for some reason or ano...