Officially published! Now what?
It’s been a long time. I don’t even remember how to use this site, so I’m trying to post something. I get the odd feeling I’m putting all of the text in the wrong spots. Like when my students email me for help with something, and their entire message is in the subject line instead of the email’s body.
Anyway, several months ago, the writing group I am in, The Pocono Liars Club, decided to put together an anthology of work from local authors. There was a call to submit something that had something to do with lying. You know, the whole “lies that tell the truth” idea for writers.
One reason I have not written here in a while is because I really do need a deadline to get anything done. So it was a huge help to have a deadline forcing me to write, with the light at the end of the tunnel being that I might actually get something published.
I had been playing around with ideas for a couple years maybe within a story world called “End/Lyfe.” It was partly inspired by watching a show on near-death experiences, and maybe had a dash of echoing thoughts from watching episodes of the show Black Mirror. I have a black notebook, which is right by me now again, where I put down a lot of little details.
So, this past summer, I finally got myself organized with it. I had a word limit of about 5,000 words, so I needed to have some structure to it. I used a combination of handwritten notes in the notebook, color-coded index cards stored in a small box, and digital organizing through the program Scrivener. In the end, the final copy was put into Microsoft Word, since it was easier to edit back and forth with the two editors, both local authors.
Sorry that I am rambling on here.
Long story short, I have a story titled “A Life Not Lived” published in this anthology. I have gotten two confirmed readers outside of the editors. My mom and a coworker. They both say some really nice things. I’m not usually great at taking compliments, and I’m definitely not going to spread them out here.
I’m going to try to figure out this WordPress thing here, though. I need to get a link to the book or something. When my head is more together, I’ll put down more detail on what I did, how I wrote the whole thing, where more specific inspirations came from, etc. But for now, I need to get a post put up here and then do some more writing. It’s the first of November, and I’m spontaneously deciding to try for the 50K words of NaNo. Silly me.
That’s all for now, though.
-Mike
The Lies We Tells Others on Amazon
The Lies We Tells Others on B&N
