Blog Tour (finally!)

A few months back I was graciously invited to join a blog tour by Brandon Crilly. Please visit his blog here to read a bit about his writing and writing practice.

What am I working on?

Oh, my goodness. Among the reasons I am so danged tardy uploading this note because I’m just totally swamped with projects. As usual I’m working on too many things. I have five pretty major projects in the pipeline, three of which are converging—those three are the second book in a loose baseball series, a genetic engineering-oriented thriller, and an eight-part sword and sorcery series. In addition, I’m preparing to provide three programs at a local workshop in mid-October (those three topics are “The seven point plot,” “Does Writer’s Block Exist,” and a session on line editing).

Then there’s some light PR that I’m beginning to think about regarding the upcoming publication of two anthologies that I’ll be appearing in with Brigid, my daughter—which is pretty cool. And that’s not even discussing my two-part space novel and my future-set AI kinda thing that I’ve got planned to focus on in November or December, or the series of short stories I expect to need to write in December and January.

So, yeah. Things are busy.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

My work is different because I am me and no one else is. I’m not sure how else to answer.

As you might tell from my earlier answer, I work across a lot of genres. My baseball books are actually a weird Swiss Army knife kind of thing in that it’s an alternate history, a mystery, a bit of a detective thing, with fantasy and science fiction elements. And, oh, yeah, it’s a baseball book. Don’t forget the baseball. But ultimately I think what sets any writer apart is not related to genre, but instead related to how they view the world and how they work to convey it.

I do my best to put myself into my work, so my work is different from any other writer’s work (hence these stories are different from any other stories) because they come from me.

I mean … I’m not Tolkien, I’m not Gaiman, I’m not Resnick, I’m not … well, I’m not a lot of people! But, then, they are not me, either (not that any of those writers do or would have cared a whit about that, of course). I am not any of those remarkable writers. I am me. I have my own style, my own voice, my own sense of the world. I hope folks like it, but regardless, I think that’s what makes most stories different in the end. Genre is just a clever marketing ploy that was originally meant to help readers find things of certain flavors. Why use it to pigeonhole a writer?

Why do I write what I do?

I write what I do because I’m interested in what I’m interested in.

What am I reading right now?

Things I’ve completed recently:

• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
• The Fires of Alexadria by Thomas K. Carpenter

How does my writing process work?

I sit down and I write.

That pretty much sums it up.

Sure, sometimes my “writing” activity is an outline, and sometimes it’s purely making up words. Or sometimes it’s just sitting there thinking, or deciding it’s best to get up and take a walk and think about things. I’ve been doing this long enough to realize that I have no one-size fits all process for developing a full story. Every one of them comes to me differently. But at the end of the day the main secret is to put butt in chair and create a lot of words.

In that sense, I don’t mind throwing a lot of words away.

If you ask, however, “how do I run my writing business?” I would answer that in a completely different manner.

Up Next

Jim Van Pelt – science fiction writer (http://jimvanpelt.livejournal.com/)
Brigid Collins – fantasy writer (http://backwrites.wordpress.com/)

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The Blog Tour

Here are links to the blog tours that led to me, as well as the names of the writers the tour was passed on to, if you want to check them out. This tour has apparently crossed over from the UK, and some very high-caliber writers have participated so far, which is pretty cool in itself, eh?. I highly recommend Michael Casteels, Christine Miscione, Sandra Stephenson, and Stuart Ross.

Kim Moore –> Maria Taylor, Andrew Forster, Roy Marshall
Maria Taylor –> Jayne Stanton
Jayne Stanton –> Robin Houghton, Siobhan Logan, Lindsay Waller-Wilkinson
Robin Houghton –> E.E. Nobbs, Cathy Bramley, Abegail Morley
E.E Nobbs –> Rob Mclennan, Issy Clarke, Becky Gethin
Rob Mclennan –> Gary Barwin, Amanda Earl
Gary Barwin –> Christine Miscione, Stuart Ross
Christine Miscione –> Michael Casteels, Stephanie Noel
Michael Casteels –> Jason Heroux, Sandra Stephenson
Sandra Stephenson (aka Czandra) –> Julie Mahfood, Joanne Arnott, Brandon Crilly