Ten Tips for Prospective Authors
Thinking of writing your first novel? Dabbling in short stories, but not sure where to begin? Here are a few secrets that help me both get started and finished.
Archive for the 'Writing' Category
I love my Calc teacher.
He knows how to lighten the mood. My other teaches are interesting, but he’s downright funny. If only I knew his name. I should get on that.
“The two hardest courses you’ll ever take are Freshman English and Freshman Calculus. Freshman English because if you don’t right well, then people will make fun of you behind your back, and nobody wants that, you have to learn to be a good writer, know your grammar and all that.
“And Freshman Calculus, well, I had a student once who went off and got a job working for some big company, General Motors or General Electric, something like that. When they hire people, if the person got an A in Freshman Calculus, they let them name their salary. Great deal, right? Sounds pretty good!
“He named his George.”
Priceless, right? I love learning Calc from this guy, even if I don’t understand it all yet. More practice, more work, and I’ll have everything down. Exams aren’t far off - next week, in fact!
How Sliced Bread Was Formed
Calculus happened, as did so many other courses. Economics was for sure a bore, but we didn’t really do anything - so I suppose it has grounds to be a bore for now. Physics the same, though it seems I’m incredibly rusty and prone to getting questions incorrect as always. I’m sure I’ll get back into the swing of things, althogh I’m ashamed at some of the basic stuff I’m getting wrong. Perhaps it means I have a bad foundation. That makes this a good time to build up the foundation.
Calculus is about the infinitely small and large; thus my calculus professor saw fit to tell a story. In calculus, you can calculate the area of a three-dimensional solid with the use of integrals. You do this by chopping up the 3D solid into infinitely small “slices”.
“You can find the volume of a cube easy,” my professor said. “But what about irregular solids? Here, I’ll draw one.” He sticks his chalk on the board, and as he draws this curious shape, he speaks:
“So, this is a pretty irregular solid. Yes… a loaf of bread. Now, you sell bread by volume. So in order to sell bread, bakers used to dunk their loaves of bread into buckets of water and measure the water that was displaced. Naturally the bread got pretty soggy - that’s why European bread has such thick crust, to prevent it from getting soggy.
But then a man came along, by the name of Newton, and invented integral calculus. And what do we do to calculate the area of something? We chop it up into slices. And thus, sliced bread was invented.”
We all laughed.
I sit under the stars as I write this, comfortably in a chair beneath a tree, watching students pass me by in the sidewalk lights’ glow. There is a beautiful cobblestone walkway just ten feet away from me, and a magnificent engineering facility some two hundred feet behind, but you wouldn’t know it from looking, because it looks more like a castle. I suppose if Archimedes had to discover that the volume of a solid is equal to the amount of liquid it displaces, such a building would be the appropriate place to do so. I read here, I write here. I check out some of the many cute girls here (I’ve abandoned my quest to garner a girlfriend in one week, which is up tomorrow, in favor of exploring all of my options, to which there are many).
And still not a single sign of a party. I wonder where they all could be… because that would be how I’d meet someone, if I did. That, or look for a photography club. By the way, I’m working on a new short story… I’ll probably have it finished rather soon. Especially since my favorite month of the year is just around the corner.
Rocks and Leaves
Y’know that story I published yesterday? I was so pissed that it ended happily, that I went back and rewrote it with the ending I wanted. I consider both stories valid, and interesting as opposites of one another…
Leaves and Rocks
So, I’ve been dead for the last few weeks. Sue me! Here I am with a recent short story I’ve written, entitled Leaves and Rocks. I had originally intended for it to have a sad ending, but for one reason or another it ended with a happy ending. Anyways, read on after the jump.
Want Spawn? Spawn is yours.
Now even you lowly peasants can buy my book - or download it for free.
Every year I independently publish copies of my book through Lulu.com for novel purposes, mostly to show them off,but also because having a bound book is much neater than printing out 10,000 double-spaced pages for editing. Usually, I’m not proud enough of my novel to say that I’m willing to distribute it this way to the masses. But I decided that, this time, I might as well make it privately available - meaning it cannot be found through a Lulu.com search, but through the following link only. Since you can already read the novel here on my blog, there’s no point in hiding a much cleaner version.
The Lulu.com version is pocket-size, 4.25 x 6.825 inches. It is free to download (PDF) and$13.13 to buy. When you buy it, a little bit of that price goes to me - think of it as fuel for me to write more novels in the future. ;)
Naturally, this is a completely unedited manuscript. It’s not great. It’s got typos, and passive voice, and all sorts of icky yuckiness. But, if you want it, it’s there. I’ll be showing off my copies to my peers, because I can.
If you want it: http://www.lulu.com/content/1571550
Oh, and please appreciate the wonderful cover + back cover, and the amazing fake NYT Book Review quotes.
The Sad Tale of Alleluia, Sweden
I wrote this yesterday. This story is meant to be a prequel for my upcoming novel, Spawn. It tells the story of how the small town of Alleluia in northern Sweden became Hell on Earth. This story takes place ten+ years before the novel, although I haven’t yet decided its true timeline placement (it could be twenty or thirty years prior). None of the characters in this short story, however, will appear in Spawn.
UPDATE: The second draft of this story has replaced the first draft. The story is now far more continuous and slightly more meaningful. In essence, it makes good sense now. I may reach out for peer editing to complete a third draft.
Utopian Dream 2
This story is a follow-up to my original Utopian Dream. It is set in the same world, where miniature worlds filled with ignorant people float or rise high above the true ground that is the “Earth.” These people generally know little of the outside world, and are prevented from escaping by high rising cliffs. And yet, somehow, people are perfectly happy living in ignorance inside their “bowl worlds.”
Read on for the story.
I Engineered Myself Back
That’s right. I built me a car, and drove myself back to my house. Actually, that’s a lie. I built a robot to drive the car I built, and then had THAT drive me back to my house. Sorry if I misled you, there.
June and Early July – In a Nutshell.
A lot has happened in the last month, and I’ve abstained from posting because I didn’t want to hurt my schooling. But now that schooling is over, I can do whatever I want. And that means you get the entire month of June, plus a bit of early July, in one giant post. And yeah, you will have to read on to actually read more.
