The Plan – Step 1: Write

I never have been very good at asking others to do things I’m not willing to do myself.  So, in the spirit of insanity, I’ve decided before I can publish I need to write.  I have plenty of stories in my head.  It’s just I’ve always been a bit intimidated to put them down.

 

When I was in school all my friend were phenomenal writers, at least as far as I was concerned.  I would spend hours reading over poetry, short stories, and drafted comics.  Hinting more that once that I’d like to be included in the projects rather than simply read them.  Unfortunately, I struggled with grammar never quite grasping when to use anything but the most rudimentarily sentence structure.  Ironically, I’m now in an advanced linguistics class.

 

So, I’m working on drafting a story while reading “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”, a variety of other books, and studying the aforementioned linguistics class with fervor.  Hopefully, you, dear reader will be able to notice a marked improvement on my blog.

 

Just what other steps lay before me?  You’ll have to wait and see.

The Crossing of the First Threshold – conDFW

This past weekend (2/23/08-2/24/08) the siren of adventure lured me towards the hazards of the publishing industry with her sweet song.

To be honest, this is not my first brush with this field.  You see, once, a very long time ago I wanted to publish my own role-playing game system…er well once is a bit of an understatement.  Throughout my teenage years, and then in early adulthood…and now, still in early adulthood I’ve flirted with the idea of writing and selling a setting/system book.  The first several times it was killed by my lack of knowledge as well as a lack of drive to truly see it through.  

Why then do I want to publish rather than write?  Quite simply, I enjoy experiencing different worlds.  The more thought out the world the more I enjoy it.  I’m one of those geeks that spent more time studying Sindarin and Klingon than any language I elected to study in school.  I was always anally obsessive about insuring that the various races within my games had completely different cultures, this led to my dreaded “no elves” rule.

While I am quite capable of developing my own worlds and stories, I take more pleasure in enjoying the stories of others and spreading them around.  Yes, I enjoy writing, but more than that I enjoy the look on someone’s face when I discuss with them why I liked their world and ask them about some of the finer points.  That’s not to say I have a problem with rejecting stories; I assure you I’m quite picky. 

Anyway, I’ve digressed.  At conDFW I was fortunate enough to attend a panel about starting your own publishing company moderated by Jerry Davis with the panelists  Chris Roberson, Thomas W. Knowles, and Glenn Yeffeth.  An hour really isn’t enough time to cover even a survey of the publishing business but it was more than enough to spark my interest.  After the Con I e-mailed each of the participants asking for whatever advice they had…and so my super natural aide!

Glenn Yeffeth suggested that I attend PMA’s Publishing University at Bookexpo. This looks like an experience that could very easily add years of experience worth of knowledge in three days.  A trip I’m strongly considering, even if it will significantly reduce my starting capital.

Chris Roberson shared with me his own personal reason for publishing.  Inspiring to say the least, I have incorporated his dream into my own and it’s added to my passion to pursue this venture.

Tom Knowles was kind enough to offer me sound advice on any entrepreneurial venture.  And that I appreciate greatly.  He also shared with me methods to help stretch my dollar further during the dry spells. There is one other major contributor to my courage and confidence, and that is the entirety of Yard Dog Press.  As part of their promotion material on the flyer table they had a small notebook.  The title of the pamplet was “I am a writer and these are my notes. “  And anyone who bothers to let me know the quote that I find inspiring near the bottom gets a cookie.