Latest News and Developments

It has been a while since I last updated my blog or live journal and for the most part, there hasn't been much news other than the release of my lastest collection of short stories, "Symphony of Seasons" under Wordclay Publishing. I did surpass my 8th anniversary as a writer on Halloween, 2011 and went to a few costume parties but all in all, I have been feeling frustrated with my writing lately. I have been thinking and chatting about this proposed novel, "Silent Uproar" for years now but have been unable to put any solid material down that meets my own standards of good solid fiction and horror. I have a firm idea of where I want to take the story only I am unable to set the tone and mood of it and feel the oppening of the novel may be asking to much of the reader.

Ultimately, I know I should hardly give a damn if I take risks with my work--I took risks making a mentally challenged tweenager a main character and heroine in a novel about vampires. (Long before "Twilight" ever came out.)

What I would like to do is begin a novel with a lucid, vivid dream sequence... something from the main character's imagination to establish what her hopes, dreams, and fantasies are... and to give the reader a glimpse of her mind and how she sees things. But when I submitted a test excerpt of 11 or so pages, the response was not at all what I expected and it seems as though no-one "got it". So naturally I am frustrated. I don't want to cheapen things by explaining that its a dream... and I don't want to set up the scene when it should be obvious that its a dream.

Maybe my test audience was a bunch of morons, I don't know. But I hate to think that I have to dumb down my ambitions. I have always sought to challenge my readers--make them think, feel, and experience the story as best as possible. If they are truly lost or dumbfounded, than I have failed to reach them.

The frustration seems to be to strike a balance between presenting something novel and different with something familiar yet smart. It is a delicate balance I am finding. The simplest answer would be to just tell the damn story as I see it in my mind and write for no one but myself... and hope someone else besides me "gets it". But that is the hugest risk of all if no-one else but me "gets it" and my novel never gets picked up or read.