Time for my weekly writer’s roundup of works-in-progress and works ready to read! First-up, the second part of short story Out to Pasture is up on Aethereal Engines. Huzzah! The last part will be posted Saturday morning if it leaves you wanting more (and I hope it does).
Last week I got started on chapter three of Oo-De-Lally and it is progressing well as a whole. I really enjoy writing the Exerverse stories; they are a perfect change of gear from the classic-medieval fantasy setting of my Burusian Tales like Out to Pasture. It’s nice to write something set in almost the present day, with references and characters inspired more directly from my daily life. The stories are also less about grand heroics than they are about the everyday challenges exers face on a personal level, and from a world that views them with an uncomfortable mix of novelty and apprehension. Having a variety of settings to write about is a wonderful asset as an author in my opinion. :-)
I got about two thousand words in on the third Oo-De-Lally chapter before I took a break from it to starting a new piece last Friday. It’s going to be another writer’s challenge entry for the fantasy writing group I participate in on Reddit. This month’s challenge is to write a story in two thousand words or less inspired by this image by Christopher Balaskas (click image for full-size):
The lead in time on this challenge is rather short at only two weeks (the contest opens on April 28th)… I suspect due to life distracting the moderator responsible for fielding the challenges. ;-) However I’ve taken the short deadline itself as inspiration. I find the combination of writing for an image and on a tight deadline very interesting as a prompt because it harkens back to the days of pulp magazines where many famous authors of imaginative and speculative fiction began their carriers or gained their greatest fame.
Cover art was very important to the pulps; so much so that an editor or publisher would sometimes secure the covers for an issue and commission a story to match it afterwards… With a very short deadline for the writer. For example, Harlan Ellison wrote the novelette The Savage Swarm for the March 1957 issue of Amazing Stories specifically for this incredibly-pulpy-yet-amazingly-awesome cover art:
Here is my source for this tidbit of information as well, page seven.
Bonus Trivia Time: Harlan Ellison actually wrote three of the featured stories in that issue of Amazing Stories, a little more than half of the issue’s content. The others were published under the pseudonyms “Ellis Hart” (S.R.O.) and “Lee Archer” (Escape Route) to make it look like the magazine had more contributors than it actually did… This was a common practice in those days. The authors generally didn’t mind because it fetched multiple (albeit small) paychecks…. Looking at my own bank statements, I can understand that logic completely. ;-) On rare occasions, whole issues of pulp magazines were comprised of only one author writing under assumed names for each story!
The imagery and thinking about the golden age of pulp fantasy fiction coalesced in my mind, and I began crafting an entry with every spare moment I could find. I’ve be really inspired! Surpassing the two thousand word mark as of last night, I know the story’s length will probably prevent it from winning…but I don’t care if it can’t win! I love this story!
The core characters are resonating with me in a special way that says I’ve got a good yarn here. So if this story demands and needs more than two thousand words to work, it will have it! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve worked hard to pack as much story into every line as I can to get the word count down. But the story needs more to be what it wants, and I’m not going to shortchange it. So… Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead! I’ll be entering this one even if it breaks the challenge rules. :-) I doubt it will become a very long story anyways, maybe three or four thousand words. And as usual I’ll be sharing it on Aethereal Engines when it’s ready.
Okay, time for me to stop blogging and get back to writing some fiction, take care!
Aethereal Engineer 